The StrategicPay Blog would like to re-welcome two guest bloggers: Robert Spencer has worked on change programs achieving more than $1B in savings for clients.  The information in this blog is based on a book he is writing, Change Made Simple; he can be reached at r.spencer@comcast.net.  He is joined in this series by Christy Martin who is a compensation consultant in Seattle, Washington.  She can be reached at christymartin@mindspring.com.  This is the second of a three-post series on making organizational changes.


More Mistakes to Avoid for Successful HR/Organizational Changes: Mistake #2

There are 6 mistakes organizations must avoid to have more successful change:
1.    Focusing on the Top Team
2.    Emphasizing Motivation
3.    Avoiding Resistance
4.    Too Much Productivity Loss
5.    Poor Sequencing of Changes
6.    Too Little Leadership Continuity 

Mistake 2: Emphasizing Motivation

Most sophisticated leaders and their consultants like to kick off major initiatives with a great deal of enthusiasm and excitement about the value of the likely results.  For example, implementing new performance management programs or a new mix of compensation features.  Characteristic of this behavior is a one-way 'dialogue' that emphasizes the leader's point of view concerning the promised results and importance of the initiative.  Often this further manifests itself as placing a premium on the leaders themselves to be 'cheerleaders' for the change program; in other words, leaders who are adept at promoting and selling the change.  "Heck, everyone should want to do this!"

Compounding this tendency is the positive response it typically elicits.  Certainly any project team worth its salt will respond positively, and often the top couple of layers of the organization will mimic this, especially if the political winds are blowing in that direction.  When the leader is concerned with the possible response, those closest to her or him can be powerfully reassuring.

The problem with cheerleading is that it is rooted in the logical, not the emotional model, of the change process.  Because there are benefits, people should logically want to be supportive, and may be intellectually.  But when we look at communications from the standpoint of the emotional process it is clear that something is ending for many people and this suggests that at some point they will experience a sense of loss and personal concerns if the change is significant.

Looking deeper into who wants to change the most, you typically find the people who are most enthusiastic about a given change are:  new to the organization (<5 years) or their role (<2 years), have already transitioned to a project role, and/or have no clear influence in existing social networks that determine how things get done.   In other words, people in the organization (or among its consultants) who have little to lose or change will tend to be the most enthusiastic.  This phenomena was captured well by Norman Mailer when he observed, "A person only becomes a conservative when he has something to conserve." 

Instead of cheerleading, the most successful leaders engage in change conversations.  Do they still allow themselves to be positive and enthusiastic about the change – certainly.  But instead of delivering a monologue, they engage in a discussion about what in fact may have to end with the new initiative.  Further, they also recognize that defining endings involves a discovery process and patience; they allow time and provide different avenues to surface concerns, and allow people to change their minds as their personal understanding evolves.

Successful managers understand there are different communications styles and use this knowledge to tease out what is happening to people.  As an example, consider the experience of one turnaround manager in trying to increase employee productivity.  Once she had shared the business imperative, she then reached out to employees and line managers to get their views on the obstacles and opportunities.  Instead of focusing the discussion on where she wanted to go, she engaged others on what needed to be done and how best to resolve what were sometimes chronic delivery problems.  She respected their views and the way they presented them, making her change an opportunity to create engagement and a dialogue.  The result:  in four months she was able to institute change initiatives that increased throughput by over 40% and even had shop stewards sharing their ideas for ways to get further improvement.

Robert Spencer will share #4, too much productivity loss, of the six mistakes in an upcoming guest blog with his collaborator, Christy Martin, for The StrategicPay Series Blog.

The StrategicPay Blog would like to welcome two new guest bloggers: Robert Spencer has worked on change programs achieving more than $1B in savings for clients.  The information in this blog is based on a book he is writing, Change Made Simple; he can be reached at r.spencer@comcast.net.  He is joined in this series by Christy Martin who is a compensation consultant in Seattle, Washington.  She can be reached at christymartin@mindspring.com.

Be More Successful Making Changes to HR Programs

Two underlying factors cause change programs to fail:
•    Too much stress or
•    Too little attention to internal politics, or
•    Both.  

While the mistakes can differ, organizations with failed changes often end up generating significant stress for those who need to change their behaviors. 

At other times, organizations ignore the social networks that exist, and serve to articulate and promulgate the real values of the organization. 

Together, stress and social networks serve to empower the anti-change agenda and undermine the desired change.

The reason why these factors (and several of the mistakes) are so difficult to manage is that they are often counter-intuitive, driven by the fact that the reality of the person driving the change is usually very different from that of the people expected to change.  But importantly, together they also constitute both a practical and moral imperative for any change agent or sponsor.

Figure 1, below, illustrates the change process as it is experienced by most project and change managers.  For them, change will unfold in a logical manner as the project is begun, then user capabilities go through a transition, and ultimately the change is completed.  There is nothing surprising about this … except that it is wrong!

Figure 1 Logical Model of the Change Process

Why is the logical model wrong?  It is wrong because change is an emotional, not a logical process that is not complete until emotional adjustments have been made.  Figure 2 below provides a view of this.  The process becomes emotional as people who are expected to change experience a loss of the way things used to be and wrestle with all of the insecurities or concerns that arise as they attempt to master something very different.  Figure 2 clarifies this process.

Figure 2 Emotional Model of the Change Process

How does this insight about emotions relate to the issues of stress and social networks?  First, the change process itself is very stressful and intensifies the emotional impacts experienced by those expected to change.  And as stress increases, the power and influence of informal social networks in the organization are increased.  Importantly, since these social networks define how work is actually accomplished within the organization, they can easily undermine the change and thwart expected results, especially over time.   Figure 3 illustrates some of the common factors that come to play and how they undermine productivity.

Figure 3 Factors that Erode Productivity

The implications?  HR professionals who make controlling stress and engaging social networks a priority in their organizations will contribute significantly to improved performance.  This is something that will otherwise be difficult for project managers and executives to master on their own, and points to a important strategic role HR professionals have to play in the creation of high performing organizations.

Robert Spencer has identified 6 mistakes organizations need to avoid for more successful change.  He will share 2 of the 6 mistakes in upcoming guest posts with his collaborator, Christy Martin, for this StrategicPay Series.