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The 3 Critical Success Factors are: The 3 Phases are: (Note: clicking on the green up arrows on the side of the page brings you back to the top.) |
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Strategic organizational change is impossible without the active and open management of the dynamics of trust. Figuring who can be trusted with what, when to trust them, and who cannot be trusted is a critical success factor for strategic organizational change. Strategic organizational change often fails because the key change players make mistakes in extending and withholding trust appropriately. Trust between the senior external consultant and the key decision maker driving the change is crucial. It can only develop through interaction. It results from four things:
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Strategic organizational change never goes according to plan. It is simply too difficult and complex. Events are not total predictable. Setbacks are inevitable. Disappointments occur. So persistence is crucial. A shared plan among the key players driving the change is essential. The plan does not need to be written, but it must be shared in that each member of the inner circle driving the change has a common understanding of it. The external consultant has a key role to play in facilitating the dialogue which creates this common understanding. Moving forward step by step helps deal with the disappointment when some step does not go as planned. Nothing succeeds like success, and experienced change agents start which things that are highly likely to succeed in order to build a sense of momentum and past success that powers change teams through setbacks. A strong sense of "we are in this together" among the key players allows the individuals in it to overcome setbacks that impact them personally, refocusing on the long term goals. |
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The single most effective way to sabotage strategic organizational change is to slow it down - usually for what appear on the surface to be good and reasonable reasons. Effective change agents infuse the change activity with a sense of urgency. They do this by pointing to and using an outside or environmental factor as "justification" for the change. People always prefer to change because of something outside of their control - either a new technology, a new regulation or law, a new competitor, ... ... . People never like to change because of some perceived lack in themselves or their abilities. Telling them that they need to change in other to overcome some personal lack is a sure way to make them defensive and resistant. Finally, urgency is the most effective way to deal with the inevitable resistance to change that occurs. Urgency justifies moving past it. Two key tactics for managing organizational change are:
Urgency allows change leaders to do both. For more on handling resistance to change see "A Manager's Short Primer on Resistance to Change in Organizations" (click here). | |
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| Phase One: Getting Engaged
This is the exploration phase in which the external senior consultant and the senior individuals (responsible at either the enterprise or the business unit level) share information. It is the "diagnosis" work in which the in-house team tells the consultant what they think they want to do, and why they think they need to do it. A good strategic organizational change consultant does not take this assessment at face value. He or she spends some time "messing around in the current state", essentially by dialoguing with people from both inside and outside the enterprise at a variety of levels. Experience counts hugely during this stage, since consultant is trying to quickly understand both the surface level and the more hidden underlying dynamics of this specific change. The phase ends with a crucial dialogue, during which the consultant confirms or challenges the in-house group's perception of reality. |
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Change can occur out of a vague and undefined senses of an end goal, as well as out of a well defined and articulated vision. When the change is driven by a single individual, and only needs the active involvement of that individual, the degree of end state definition does not matter all that much. Its level of definition will match the personality and the working style of the single change leader. However, when change depends on the coordinated actions of a number of people, then the need for a "common understanding" of "what happens next?" and "where are we ultimately headed?" is crucial. The setting direction phase is all about creating this clarity and common understanding. The external change consultant acts as a facilitator, clarifier and documentor in this process. The internal change driver and the inner circle around that person have to do the work of articulating the vision of where the change is going.The external person is the only person with the independence and the time to facilitate this dialogue. The other individuals driving the change have so much to do on a day to day basis that their day to day demands keep them from doing it. A competent facilitator will also clarify the dialogue in ways that create common understanding among the inner change circle. Setting direction means planning. Not all of the change plans need to be full articulated and complete. Generally, the amount of detail needed varies by how far out ahead the plan is looking. In generally, everyone involved needs to know in detail what needs to happen this week, and probably next, have a pretty good sense of what is happening till the end of the month, have a good outline of what is happening the rest of the quarter, and so on. In organizations this gets complicated quickly. Organizational change need coordinated action on the people, process and tool level to succeed. (Click PPT framework to view this change framework developed by Roelf Woldring.) When this means coordinating change in financial management, human resources, operations, marketing, product development and information technology, the cognitive complexity of the planning is a challenge. The external consultant needs to bring proven experience with this level of complexity to the change program. It is not as simple as developing the "complete plan". Rather, it requires having a high level sense of the whole, and the relationships between the parts. This allows the external consultant to work with appropriate individuals to develop the detail plan for the immediate future (this week, next week, till the end of the month, till the end of the quarter) in each of these areas. But the plan must not become rigid: the change effort must respond to changing and unanticipated events. The external consultant is the only one with the time to raise the dialogue needed to clarify the impact of such responses on the overall plan. Keeping all of this straight, takes "personal smarts" and "extensive business experience". It takes a special external consultant. |
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Dialogue means nothing unless it leads to action. Change is only accomplished through acting. Acting means communicating and getting people to change how they do things today, so that they do things tomorrow that are aligned with the needs of the change. Action produces reactions. Reactions either support the change the direction, or push against it. Either one must the dealt with appropriately. Action produces successes and setbacks. Both must be managed. Successes must be acknowledged. Setbacks must be overcome. Plans must be updated based on both successes and setbacks. But change must also come to an end. People need a sense of the "normal" to function well. At some point, the change must be declared achieved, and success celebrated. Celebration is a crucial ritual for allowing people to "feel" normal again. An external consultant may or may not be part of the final action work. Good consultants work themselves out of an organization. They understand that their work is defined by sunset clauses. They work with the inner circle change driver to put people in place who carry out the new ways of doing things as a "matter of course" - "the way things are done around here". Then good strategic organizational change consultants go away. That helps signal that the change is complete, and the "new" culture is now the normal culture. Organizational change consultants who do not do this become insiders. They become part of the new normal world. They stop being consultants (even though they may still bill like one). Sometimes that makes sense, but that means they can no longer be change consultants, but become internal executives. Their loyalties change. They no longer only succeed through the success of the senior change driver. They now succeed or fail in their own right. Change experts are not always the best "business as usual" executives. Good change consultants are very clear about the difference. They do not become insiders unless they have the skills, the values and the motives to take on a particular insider role.
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