Archive for the ‘transforming the organization’ Category

The best approach to implementing change is identifying your unique approach for each particular situation.  Even within organizations it is risky to have a one size fits all approach yet many organizations aim to have one methodology for all.

Take for example a sales division, this most likely will have a different culture from the IT department just based on the skill set, the type of work and environment in which employees work therefore the best approach is to define specifically what will work within an organization not the organization as a whole.

Here are 5 tips to get you started.

1.       The first is to understand the business context.  This goes almost without saying that you need to understand what the business reason is for the change, what are the business impacts both within the organization and externally and what is the goal and vision for the organization as a result of the changes implemented.

2.       What is the scope of the change, is it a new way of doing business, new technology, new markets, or a new organizational structure?  These are just some of the questions you need to ask as the impact will be on employees and other stakeholders and by analysing the impact you will understand begin to understand the scope of your change strategy.

3.       Once you have done this analysis you are ready to identify the best approach to implement the changes.  This includes the communication strategy which is nearly always about information, the engagement strategy which is about designing activities aimed at getting the buy-in and support of all levels of employees including the leadership team and then identifying the business measures.

4.       Implement the change strategy for all levels including the leadership team and assess continuously and monitor the success or otherwise of change interventions and alter as the need arises and continue to measure.

5.       Change should be seamless and become part of business as usual activities.  Where change processes fail is when they are labelled and treated as something happening over there and separate to the business.  Seamless integration into the new way we do business is the most difficult but necessary aspect of managing change so ensure that the engagement activities designed in step 3 are designed to become a new process so that behaviour changes.

Change management is difficult, stories abound of change strategies that fail, either due to lack of support by the leadership team, the inability to explain in very simple terms that mean something to individuals why the change is occurring and the miscalculation in timing of the change interventions whether they be key messages or engagement strategies.  To find out more about how to implement change and engage employees click here.

For transformational leaders, one of the best ways to create momentum to bring strategy to life is to connect employees with the customer experience.  So practically what does this mean and how do you do it?  What this means is that you are looking for opportunities that demonstrate the connection between the work that employees do and the impact it has directly on the customer – whether that be with an internal or external customer. For more ideas on how to do this click here.

Today we’ll explore a few case studies that illustrate how this can be implemented regardless of your industry sector.

Healthcare Sector Case Study:

The Objective:

This hospital wanted to cut costs whilst at the same time ensuring that its patients were not adversely affected by the changes.  The hospital was also a major provider of healthcare in a small community, so it was essential that its reputation of high-quality care was not reduced.

The Method:

The hospital wanted to ensure that its personal care remained at the highest standard.  So they sought feedback through focus groups, telephone surveys and directly contacting the carers.  Three key attributes in patient care emerged as the main contributors to patient satisfaction.  The hospital staff concentrated on improving these three areas while simultaneously reducing costs. Cross-functional teams were then established with employees who volunteered to take part.  An employee with strong project management skills was selected to lead each team.  They then presented management with a list of options to improve the experience of the patients, with details of costings and timeframes for implementation.  Agreement was reached on the changes and the senior management team ensured line managers were not barriers to the implementation.

The Outcome:

As a result of the changes implemented, patient satisfaction rose to 98%.  This significantly high score contributed to a great lift to employee morale and increased motivation despite the cost-cutting activities. Employees were directly involved in implementing the improvements, and a staff survey indicated greater levels of job satisfaction.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

STEP 1:

Identify whether your customer research can indicate top three factors that will have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction.

STEP 2:

Involve employees in the implementation of some of these changes.

STEP 3:

Measure customer satisfaction and communicate this to employees.  It will be an endorsement of their efforts and thus improve staff morale.

Media Sector Case Study:

The Objective:

This media organization was concerned that as it grew, the level of customer satisfaction varied considerably across the businesses.  The organisation wanted to dramatically improve its service levels and to become more customer-focused, but they also needed to involve employees in the process.

The Method:

The first aspect of the project was to survey employees in focus groups about what they thought the level of service was.  The survey highlighted interesting results:  most employees felt that red tape hindered customer satisfaction; half the employees commented that excellence in customer service was not recognized; and, a large number of employees felt that managers did not focus on customer satisfaction.   The focus group results highlighted the areas for improvement.  The first was putting together cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for eliminating red tape and improving customer satisfaction.  Then, the employees designed what they felt were appropriate reward and recognition for excellence in customer service.  And finally to address the issue of managers not being focussed on customer satisfaction they were integrated into the cross functional teams and had accountability for making them successful.  The approach was driven by the CEO and the executive management team.  It created a focus around customer satisfaction that permeated every aspect of the customer experience and was the main driver of the organization.

The Outcome:

Over 150 ideas on ways to enhance customer satisfaction were received from the cross-functional teams. Nearly all the suggestions were implemented, which reinforced the support the organization had for the project.  Continued focus on customer satisfaction reinforced it as the key driver in the organization’s culture.

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

STEP 1:

Conduct some focus groups and find out what employees think about customer satisfaction levels.

STEP 2:

Implement cross-functional teams for employees to address some of the issues raised in the focus groups.

STEP 3:

When designing a rewards and recognition programme, give employees the opportunity to indicate what would be a motivator for them.

Leadership communication is so much more than updating intranet sites, organising CEO forums, company blogs and sending out information via email.  The true value is in finding ways to engage employees by doing something differently and seeing the direct impact of the decisions and actions that they take at work.  For more case studies click here.

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.

As I see it there are two ways to manage change within organisations.  One of those is to constantly communicate information about what is happening and to collect information to inform your change activities.  The other is to engage leaders and employees in the process of change so that communication takes place rather than information and you create a paradigm shift that the change process is owned by the leaders and employees in the organisation, not the change manager.

So here are a few examples of what I mean.  Let’s say as part of the change process you decide to undertake a stakeholder analysis.  There are two ways of managing this, the first is to get a template and circulate it via email and ask managers to complete it.  If they have filled out the form they will let you know who the stakeholders are, what their issues are likely to be, how they recommend they are communicated with and how frequently.  Another way of doing a stakeholder analysis is to use the same template but this time with the leadership group in the room facilitate a session where they have to discuss and reach agreement on all of the issues.  This is definitely going to create a more robust conversation and sense of ownership.  After the session as part of the signoff process you distribute the outcomes of the session via email and ask the leadership team to confirm via email that they are happy with the content of the stakeholder analysis. Both of these actions create a sense of ownership and responsibility that you would not have had if you used the first approach and just circulated the stakeholder analysis template via email or completed it by having brief one on one discussions.

Another part of the change process for any project is around risks and issues.  It would be easy for any change manager to sit down and complete on their own or with the HR manager the people risks and issues during any change process.  However you want the leadership team to own the people risks and issues, and even before this step to understand that there are risks and issues regarding employees and they should identify what they might be and what mitigation strategies they suggest.  And then after all of this they assign various members of their leadership team to have accountability to deal with the risk should it escalate as an issue.  So again if you facilitate a session with the leadership team to complete the risks and issues template you are creating another paradigm shift in thinking about their accountability for the change process to be successful.

And this is the difference, it is subtle but the results are significant. You will never achieve engagement with the leadership team for owning the people issues around change if you do all the work for them.  You need to get them thinking, talking, discussing, arguing and finally owning the people issues regarding change if you are going to have any level of real success.

As always I am interested in your comments and feedback about the approaches you have found worked in engaging leaders to own the change process in your organisation.

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.