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Trying to keep momentum going during long periods of change implementation is one of the greatest challenges organisations face.  This is especially true for major information technology system projects where significant engagement activity can take place during the design phase and the implementation phase but it is in the quiet of the build phase that momentum and engagement tends to lag. Here are some suggestions of what you can do to ensure that leaders as well as employees remain focussed on the changes ahead.

1. Implement team briefing.

Ensure that regular meetings take place with consistent messaging that incorporate change with business as usual activities. You can easily dovetail messages about the system changes and the reason why they are happening by connecting to the everyday business transformation that is going on.  By ensuring consistency in messages team briefing allows you to ensure the focus remains on change and most importantly the reason why.

2. Link to customer service feedback and measures.

There are some powerful ways of linking the customer experience to innovation and change at the workplace. Access to market research on the customer experience can be a great starting point for wider business as usual transformation.  The changes implemented are then measured for improvement in the customer research taken again six months later.

3. Connect with the wider business strategy.

What else is happening in the organisation, what is the bigger picture of what is changing and why and how will the system change enable some improvements in achievement of the organisation’s vision.   By always connecting to the why the rest of the story will fall into place and the momentum for change will continue because there is always something happening.

4. Identify what employees know about the changes.

Measure feedback via focus groups to find out what employees are actually saying about the changes, what they know, identify what they don’t and what they want to know.  You will only ever find this out by conducting the focus groups – questionnaires will not give you the answers you are seeking. Once you have this information it is easy to continue to plan your strategy to keep the momentum for change going.

5. Celebrate milestones.

It is important to keep reminding leaders as well as employees of the milestones in any change process and why they are significant.  By integrating the general changes in business as usual activities and the specific system changes, this constant recognition of progress will keep the focus on movement towards the desired business goals.

If you keep the focus on business as usual and integrate messages about change and the project’s achievements then all you need to do is a subtle shift in balance when you get into implementation phase after the quiet of the build phase of your Information Technology system change.  To have all the detailed information at your fingers tips on how to do this visit  http://www.marciaxenitelis.com/products.html and order all 3 products and save 10% on the purchase price.

The key ingredient for any successful change program is management and leadership commitment to the proposed strategy.  The greatest challenge therefore for change managers is to ensure that leaders stay on message and do not waiver from the challenges ahead.  Change is hard, whether you are at the frontline, or at the executive leadership level.  But the most difficult role of all to cope with change is the leader, because pressures come from leadership team members warning against the changes, there will be unrest amongst staff and questions regarding the strategy.  And it is always safer to stay with what is known even if it is not the best outcome for the organisation rather than to take a risk to try to innovate and do something new that is untested.
So here’s what can you do to ensure that the focus stays on strategy.
1. Establish a project management team comprised of key leaders that focus on enterprise wide change and dependencies and is chaired by the CEO or department head.  This ensures that the silo mentality is broken down as managers are required to adapt to a new process, that is, thinking of their specific project and the impact across the organisation, which in turns changes behaviour.
2. From a change communication perspective it is important to ensure that communication is timely and aligned with progress at each of these change meetings.  More importantly it is essential to communicate how each project and strategy execution is aligned with the enterprise wide vision and direction of the organisation.  This way employees and managers will understand how individual projects are linked and how the organisational strategy is dependent on them all coming together.
3. All members of the leadership team need to be aligned.  They must have consistent messaging regarding the direction they are communicating and that it is linked to the organisational vision and strategy. The need to communicate this face to face and influence support, provide specific details of the positive outcomes of the strategy to those who are accountable for driving aspects of the strategy.
4. Identifying and communicating the performance requirements linked to the strategy and confirming this at regular intervals throughout the year keeps everyone focused on the strategy and tasks.
5. Ensure that all managers make the strategy reviews and updates a key part of their regular team meetings.
6. Implementation is the most difficult aspect to manage successfully of any project because this is when it becomes real – most resistance will be at this phase of strategy execution, so it is important to have engagement strategies in place before this phase.
7. Identify those members of the leadership team most likely to be committed to achieving the outcomes and design a specific role for them to influence their peers and their management teams.
8. Where project management falls down is at the middle management level unless they have been engaged from the beginning and this means actually involved in the project and being able to influence the direction.  This is where significant undermining occurs of project implementation and that is largely based in fear.  Find out what the fear is and then address it and ensure that middle management are engaged from the beginning so they feel less threatened by the unknown.

Senior management provide direction for the strategy, ensure that appropriate resources both people and dollars are available, are focussed and directly involved and aware of all the issues and risks of the project and most importantly provide updates and direction on an ongoing basis.  The role of the change manager is to support this by ensuring that all the other issues that could derail the project are dealt with so that the senior leadership do not back track on the strategy.

Finally to maintain commitment to change all projects needs to be integrated into the longer term strategy and vision of the organisation and for all employees from frontline to senior leadership to understand how the project and their role contributes to the overall vision.  Change is only successful when it is seamlessly integrated into the way the organisation operates, not as an appendage to the organisation.

One of the common mistakes people make when designing a change program is assuming that if a person is a team leader, supervisor or senior manager they should naturally know how to communicate face to face with their teams.  However communication skills are rarely one of the key competencies that is taught or measured by organizations.  There is however a very easy way to ensure that there is structure and content that make it very easy for managers at all levels to follow.

What is needed is structure and process and team briefing which is a formal communication cascading process via management is a tool that perfectly fits the bill. It has three levels of cascading messages:

1.    The first is the CEO who at his executive team briefings decides which topics for that week he wants communicated to employees.

2.    This is then circulated out to his direct reports who then have to communicate those issues and decide the top 5 issues for their respective divisions and then finally the top 5 issues for their teams.

3.    So the only aspect of a team brief that changes is the last section which is how what is happening in the company and our division relates to the work we are doing in our team. This is the section that always changes depending on your team in the division.

The reason this works is simple.  The only aspect a manager has to think about is what is happening in the organization that will effect his team that week or month depending on the frequency of the team briefing process.  The rest of the information is already determined by the divisional head and the CEO.  The team brief should only take around 15 minutes so it can be incorporated into a regular team meeting.  And most importantly it is constant as the CEO has his Executive team meeting dates set for the entire year and this ensures that everyone from the Executive team to the frontline know what is happening in the organization.

The key factor to the success of team briefings is that they are driven by the CEO.  Whenever your CEO talks with managers and employees he should ask whether they had in fact attended a team briefing and how regularly they occured.This way if they are not he can say to his direct reports, “I am conducting my team brief with you now so there is no excuse for you not to do the same with your team members”.

So these are the keys to making Team Briefings work.

1. Make sure that you put in place a simple process
2. Make sure that the CEO drives it and that his direct reports understand the importance to the CEO – not you. Afterall you are not their boss, he is.
3. Ensure that the topics are the type of content that management are comfortable and knowledgeable about
4. Provide a feedback loop, again this is part of the process, if there is a question that management do not know the answer to, there must be a formal easy process for them to follow to quickly obtain the answer and respond to the employee.
5. Team briefings should only take 15 minutes, they can also be incorporated into regular weekly meetings.

When it comes to cascading information in a face to face format via management remember that as with anything, there will be some topics that employees want to hear directly from the CEO and other topics they are happy to hear from their manager. Generally when it comes to significant issues such as retrenchments, closure of offices and mergers or acquisitions employees generally want to hear this from the person at the top. Day to day, week by week and month by month operational issues they are comfortable in hearing from their manager who manages their daily work.

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When you have an entire organization paralysed with fear, when there are budget cuts all around, negative media speculation, no one is secure.  And the only person who really knows what is being planned is the CEO.  Is it any wonder, when you give a script for managers and supervisors to communicate to staff, their teams ask what’s going to happen with our jobs and the manager or supervisor in the spirit of trust and honesty says, “I don’t know, I don’t even know what is going happen to me.”  So this is why you need to take a different approach to face to face communication during these times.

So here is an example of how managers and supervisors can still have accountability for specific messages and at the same time utilize your CEO as a key communicator during times of change . 

 During another “bad” economic time, during which the organization had 9 new competitors during one year the following strategy was implemented. 

 1.            Firstly it was arranged that the CEO would meet with each of the state managers of the business divisions in each state individually. The win for the CEO was to hear first hand how business was in each business division in each state and to meet with key clients at the same time.

 2.            He explained honestly to each State Manager the reality of the situation with the business and why he had to rely on them. 

 3.            He gave them specific actions of what he wanted from them and they in return delivered and stepped up and managed in some instances the total closure of state offices in true leadership style. 

 4.            We then held “Business Reality” workshops for one day in each state which all managers and supervisors attended.  The CEO was present at each and shared with them real business data and the issues facing the organization and asked for their input in coming up with options and innovative ideas to grow the business.

 5.            These ideas were then considered by the Executive team and the best were implemented in each business division and state.

 6.            The supervisors and managers now had something to share with their teams – specific action plans for their division.  And more importantly the key issues that the CEO had asked them to focus on.

The outcome was that despite going through extensive downsizing, restructures and everyone having to reapply for new roles, the business grew by 25% in that year.  Obviously the strategy was much more detailed than outlined above, but the purpose of this article is share why I think managers and supervisors are not the best face to face communicators during times of change and why the CEO has to take an active role in transforming the organization.