FACILITATING CHANGE – WELL (and it is long term!)
How often have you seen- or been a part of – a senior leadership team effort to design change? And seen it not happen at all! So often what happens is that the senior leadership team spends lots of time (days, weeks, even months) deciding on some new vision for which CHANGE must now take place. And then they announce it, . . . . . and the change does not happen. They tend to blame everyone/anyone – except themselves. They usually skip asking why it took them weeks and then they expected people to engage with the change with one short announcement! A useful tool for me in facilitating change was given to me by a mentor of mine, Carl Harshman: let me share the essence of it with you. You will note that it focuses on the reasons CHANGE fails: pay heed, it is powerful.
Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail
In the March-April 1995 issue of Harvard Business Review, John P. Kotter, a professor of leadership in the Harvard Business School and a national expert on Change, wrote of eight primary reasons that organizations are unsuccessful when implementing efforts to change.
First a beginning summary:
The most general lesson to be learned from the more successful cases is that the change process goes through a series of phases that, in total, usually require a considerable length of time. Skipping steps creates only the illusion of speed and never produces a satisfying result. A second very general lesson is that critical mistakes in any of the phases can have a devastating impact, slowing momentum and negating hard-won gains. Perhaps because we have relatively little experience in renewing organizations, even very capable people often make at least one big error.
Next, a summary of the eight most common reasons transformational change is not as successful as envisioned:
Error #1: Not Establishing a Great Enough Sense of Urgency
When does an organization reflect a sufficient amount of urgency? Kotter says:
From what I have seen, the answer is when about 75% of a company's management is honestly convinced that business-as-usual is totally unacceptable. Anything less can produce very serious problems later on in the process.
Error #2: Not Creating a Powerful Enough Guiding Coalition
Kotter's experience is straightforward: “Efforts that don't have a powerful enough guiding coalition can make apparent progress for a while. But, sooner or later, the opposition gathers itself together and stops the change.” In order to counteract this error, the membership, role, and development of the steering committee structure require major attention as part of the effort.
Error #3: Lacking a Vision
Kotter's bottom line:
In every successful transformation effort that I have seen, the guiding coalition develops a picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate and appeals to customers, stockholders, and employees.
Without a clear vision, the effort often degenerates into a series of projects that are unrelated and either go nowhere in the long run or mislead the organization in terms of where it really needs to go.
His recommendation in terms of a vision?:
. . .if you can't communicate the vision to someone in five minutes or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and interest, you are not yet done with this phase of the transformation process.
Error #4: Undercommunicating the Vision by a Factor of Ten
According to Kotter, communication is the key to getting people to make the sacrifices that are necessary to achieve the vision. If the communication is done poorly or if the top leadership undermines it with their actions, everything is wasted. His recommendation? Use every possible channel, especially those that are being wasted on information that really doesn't matter.
Error #5: Not Removing Obstacles to the New Vision
Kotter's perspective on this error is to be assertive:
In the first half of a transformation, no organization has the momentum, power, or time to get rid of all obstacles. But the big ones must be confronted and removed. If the blocker is a person, it is important that he or she be treated fairly and in a way that is consistent with the new vision. But action is essential, both to empower others and to maintain the credibility of the change effort as a whole.
Error #6: Not Systematically Planning for and Creating Short-Term Wins
Change is a long-term investment. We risk losing the early momentum of an effort if there are not short-term goals to meet and celebrate. According to Kotter, creating short-term wins is different than hoping for short-term wins. Managers have to identify opportunities, set goals, develop strategies, and recognize people when the goals are met.
Kotter says that once people realize that the larger transformation effort will take a long time, leadership must create opportunities to produce short-term wins as a way to keep the momentum high.
Error #7: Declaring Victory Too Soon
Of all the problems that can hinder an effort (not enough urgency, an ineffective guiding coalition, a vision that does not get communicated), Kotter says the premature victory celebration kills the momentum and allows the forces of tradition to take over.
The successful strategy, according to Kotter, involves the following:
Instead of declaring victory, leaders of successful efforts use the credibility afforded by short-term wins to tackle even bigger problems. They go after systems and structures that are not consistent with the transformation vision and have not been confronted before. They pay real attention to who is promoted, who is hired, and how people are developed.
Error #8: Not Anchoring Changes in the Corporation's Culture
Kotter opens this section thus:
In the final analysis, change sticks when it becomes "the way we do things around here," when it seeps into the bloodstream of the corporate body. Until new behaviors are rooted in social norms and shared values, they are subject to degradation as soon as the pressure for change is removed.
Conclusion
"In reality, even successful change efforts are messy and full of surprises. . .[and] fewer errors can spell the difference between success and failure." An organization has at least two opportunities to reduce their errors in design and implementation of a successful transformation process. One is at the point of design, the other at the point the error begins to occur. Failing at both points is what Kotter is trying to help organizations avoid.
Knowing Before Fixing
“You can’t repair something if you don’t know how it works.” These words of wisdom were shared by a city maintenance supervisor at a recent leadership class I delivered. We were discussing the characteristics of great leadership.
Not being gifted with much talent at all for fixing or maintaining things, I realized this simple practical statement ascends beyond “things” and also is true for people and relationships. Stephen Covey made famous the habit of “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” The intention is similar … if I want to improve, fix, change, understand, alter, positively impact someone or something — it requires knowing how he/she/it works first! And knowing how someone or something works demands study, observation, learning, and analysis — it calls for investing time with the “owners manual” for that person or thing first, prior to getting out the toolbox and “fixing.”
The Three P’s of Satisfaction
Any time you need to guide a major change or help others resolve a conflict, you have the potential to make one or more people very unhappy. This is true whether you’re negotiating a business contract, selecting a new department manager, cutting your operating budget, or resolving differences within your executive team. In each of these situations, one person or group may end up praising you while another is grumbling behind your back … if not to your face.
Having mediated hundreds of legal, business, and organizational disputes, I’ve found that I am far more likely to end up with satisfied people on all sides if I make a concerted effort to provide everyone with the “Three P’s of Satisfaction.”
Process satisfaction requires a fair, orderly, and even-handed process where everyone feels that they’ve had a reasonable opportunity to present their side of the matter (1 Cor. 14:40). This requires that everyone is given all the time they need to prepare and present their thoughts. When you ask, “Is there anything else anyone would like to say,” you want everyone to respond, “No, I’ve shared everything I see as being relevant; thank you for hearing me out.”
Personal satisfaction requires treating everyone with respect, courtesy, and equality, just as you would want to be treated yourself (Matt. 7:12, James 2:1-4). This kind of treatment involves careful listening, genuine empathy, and gracious communication (Prov. 22:11).
Product satisfaction requires a final agreement or decision that is as reasonable, just and equitable as is humanly possible (Micah 6:8; Prov. 28:5).
Here’s the key to this process: although most people involved in a decision-making (or conflict-resolving) process will focus most of their energy on achieving a particular outcome (product satisfaction), in the long run they will also place a great deal of value on how they were treated during the process.
This means that even if a final decision is not entirely to their liking, they will often accept the result with equanimity if the decision-makers provided them with a high level of both process and personal satisfaction.
I cannot emphasize this point too much: Give people process satisfaction (the opportunity to fully and candidly share their views) as well as personal satisfaction (treating them with sincere courtesy and respect), and you’ll be surprised how content they’ll be even if they disagree with your substantive decision.
And if you succeed in giving people all three types of satisfaction, you’ll find that they will trust and respect you more, and genuinely support the decisions you make.
By the way … the Three P’s of Satisfaction are fully transferable: they work just as well at home and in church as they do at the office.
So whether you’re dealing with a corporate issue, a marriage conflict, a debate with your teenager, or differing positions at an elders’ meeting, you’ll be far more likely to preserve respect, unity, and relationships if you make every reasonable effort to provide everyone involved with process, personal, and product satisfaction.
Ken Sande is the founder of Peacemaker Ministries and Relational Wisdom 360 and the author of numerous books on biblical conflict resolution, including The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict.
The Business of Business is Planning
If you don’t get this right a lot of things will happen and none of it is good! Planning, in my view, must be strategic, deliberate, premeditate, calculated, considered, and intentional. We are admonished to do everything decently and in order.
My question to you is, “How do you know what direction to take unless you plan it out?”
If there was one I believe that these people, among others, would be included in the “Planning Hall Of Fame”; those that planned strategically as they sought to carry out God’s vision for them:
1] Jethro, Moses father-in-law, mentored Moses to appoint officials over the people of Israel and had them serve as rulers to judge over the people. [Exodus 18: 17-27]. I view Jethro as history’s first organization development consultant.
2] King David knew his role in the planning for and staging of the resources needed for the building of the temple and left everything needed for Solomon to complete the building of the temple.
3] Nehemiah made careful preparation and plans for the rebuilding of the Wall around Jerusalem.
4] The apostle Paul developed a strategic missionary strategy of proclaiming the gospel and establishing churches in centers of commerce from which believers could take the gospel to outlying villages.
5] Jesus Himself was a planner. Reading the gospels I get the clear sense that Jesus operated intentionally. He was clear about His identity, His mission, and deliberately went to places like Caesarea Philippi just to ask the disciples, “Who do you say that I am”. He could have had that conversation anywhere but he intentionally traveled a long way to just to ask that question; “Why”, is the subject of another blog.
Additionally as the time approached for Jesus to complete His mission, he moved intentionally toward Jerusalem in order to complete His Father’s mission for Him. He knew His plan and was able to declare, “It is finished”.
Jesus gave the disciples a vision, provision and a plan to reach the world when He told them, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Throughout biblical history Godly people have been planners and strategic about it. Prayerful and thoughtful analysis and preparation are the keys in designing for success in the work of God.
Questions that support the need for planning include:
“Who are we?”, is about mission and purpose
“Where are we?”, is about analysis
“Where are we going?”, is about vision
“How are we going to get there?”, is about planning
“How are we going to pay for it?”, is about cash flow generation and management
“How are we doing?”, is about implementation and measurement and Course correction
The purpose of planning, which is the Business of Business, is to ultimately create a set of priorities that enable a CEO to act courageously and responsibly today in order to advance toward a God given future vision and legacy with an ever greater expression of God’s power in the marketplace. It is an intentional systematic effort to seek the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to discern the will of God as we move into the future.
If a designated leader isn’t planning how can that person really be a leader? My experience as a business leader is that there is no substitute for good planning and preparation leading to efficient and effective implementation.
King Solomon wrote, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint”. Jesus says, “My people perish for lack of vision”.
Here is a question for you to ask of yourself, “What area of my life and business do I need to be more strategic about?” God wants to reveal to us not only what we are to do but give us the energy, will and determination to do it strategically, faithfully, and persistently.
“Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully, prepare prayerfully, proceed positively, pursue persistently.” William Arthur Ward, inspirational writer
Here I am Lord send me!