Myths, Methods and Madness

Nothing Drives Change More Than...

2011-02-08T08:06:00.000-08:00

I found this little story that illustrates how “making it personal” can have a tremendous effect to help change along.

A couple of months ago, a lady wearing blue jeans, a T-shirt, flip flops and no makeup (yes, there is a point to these details), was admitted with chest pains to the emergency room of Sumner Regional Medical Center (SRMC) in Tennessee.

The experience wasn’t one to inspire much joy.

Why did it all take so long? Why did they keep asking the same questions several times? Why didn’t anybody notice that so many steps seemed duplicated?

On its website, SRMC prides itself of being one of only three hospitals in Tennessee staffed 24/7 with physicians both board certified and residency trained in Emergency Medicine, the flagship hospital of the health care entity HighPoint Health System.

So expectations should be high.

As it happened, the patient turned out to be fine and the story could have ended here, perhaps with a shrug about the inefficiencies of the health care system.

But in this case it didn’t.

The patient - Mrs. Mary Jo Lewis - is actually the CEO of SRMC. She just had not been recognized minus the usual CEO-like attire. So she got the real, unfiltered user experience.

It had an impact. The week following her ER visit, she was meeting the ER staff again, this time to talk. She learned that her experience had not been an outlier. Wait times at the SRMCs emergency room were taking up to four hours in many instances, compared to a national average of about 90 minutes.

She brought an efficiency expert in to work with physicians, nurses, and registration clerks etc. to pinpoint unnecessary repetition.

After a two-day(!) session of mapping out emergency room steps with sticky notes plastered across a conference room wall (in our framework, creating physical experiences), ideas now are becoming reality. Reportedly there is now a real change buzz, and a steady stream of emails simplifying things such as registration forms and screening procedures.

Some changes were simple fixes. For example, one of the things Lewis had noticed during her ER visit had been that having blood drawn was one of the last steps in the evaluation. But it takes about an hour to get the results back from the lab.

Or, the switchboard operator used to switch her phone down to the ER reception desk during the lunch hour, adding to the registration delays for emergency patients. Those calls are now routed to another department that is not a bottleneck.

Registration forms were streamlined, other procedures simplified and re-arranged.

We see a lot of “shrinking the change” and “shaping the path” at work.

And none of this would have been achieved if CEOs were not sometimes patients, too.

Speaking to the Elephant (3/7): Make it personal

2011-01-11T12:58:00.000-08:00

Old telephone books make ideal personal address books. Simply cross out the names and addresses of people you don't know.

We need to make the change idea relevant and important to the individual. If we fail to do that, we have created a nice and possibly entertaining moment of breaking through the noise and creating a feeling, but after this jolt everybody goes back to business as usual. The idea does not stick.

To sustain the attention we need to make the change a matter of personal importance. In psychology this is the conative element (from Latin conation: mental processes or behavior directed toward action, including impulse, desire, volition and striving). What is the element that compels me to make the change?

One of my pharmaceutical clients uncovered opportunities to increase sales and profit through better customer targeting. Sales reps were provided with prioritized customer lists and asked to call from now on only on these customers. They should spend more time with “A” customers than with the “Bs”, more with “Bs” than with “Cs” etc.

Management introduced the new approach in detail and explained why the change was needed. A business case highlighted the expected impact on sales growth and the bottom line. The sales reps went through a special training program.

A few months into the implementation, it became obvious that most of the reps had not really changed their behavior. As before, they spread their attention fairly evenly across most customers in their territory. They found the new approach impractical and unnecessary. They came up with many good reasons why each of their customers deserved the level of attention they were giving them.

With hindsight, the arguments for the case of change had been analytically correct and well communicated. But they not very meaningful for the people who were asked to make the change. Pointing to higher sales and profits may be an excellent argument to motivate CEO and Finance Director, but not so much the sales rep.

So what would motivate the reps to make the change? We probably need to show them how their lives can be made easier, and how this can be achieved quickly and ideally with little extra effort. “Quickly” is important – if we talk about benefits in a year or two from now, that’s too distant and intangible – and who knows if I will still be there anyway. “Little extra effort” is also important – if it’s too hard, fatigue will set in quickly and many will revert to the old habits. There are more things we can do here to help – “shrinking the change” and “shaping the path” amongst them.

In our example, perhaps management should have told a story in which a sales rep used targeting information to avoid calling on “deadbeat” customers (aka the time wasters), which helped her to get home at 6pm to the family every day and still get to go to the Presidents Club.

Speaking to the Elephant 2/7: Give a Jolt

2011-01-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

How can you tell if you’re working with AC or DC power? Easy! Just grab the conductors. If your teeth chatter, it’s AC. With DC they just clamp together.

To break through the noise we need to think like an artist.

Perhaps we have already been in this situation: We have a great idea for changes. These changes will bring ample benefits. It’s obvious. Let’s tell everybody about it and get moving. All quite simple, really.

Well, perhaps it is so to us. But what’s a “no-brainer” for those who have spent weeks or perhaps even months analyzing the situation and developing solutions, isn’t necessarily so for other stakeholders, who have not been privy to these details. Many other potentially equally attractive proposals may be competing for time and attention.

In their book “Switch”, Dan and Chip Heath re-tell the story of a large manufacturer wasting vast sums of money in poor purchasing decisions (the original account is in John Kotter’s book “The Heart of Change”). An overhaul of the inefficient buying processes promises significant cost savings. But how to get management’s focus and commitment? Provide another report with the facts and figures? Add an additional agenda item to the next executive committee meeting?

The winning approach is unconventional: all the division presidents are invited to visit the Glove Shrine - a large pile of the more than 400 types of gloves the company was purchasing from different suppliers at vastly heterogeneous prices - now the centerpiece on the expensive conference table in the executive boardroom. The division presidents are appropriately flabbergasted, and the rest, as they say, is history…

This is a great example for “finding the feeling”. Question is: how do we come up with something like this?

One characteristic to look for is creating a surprise, something that is inconsistent with "normal" expectations, that jolts the attention. A huge pile of gloves is certainly not what people expect when they go to a conference room.

Our mind is a pattern detection system. We perceive signals from the environment, behavior and stories, and link them to familiar archetypes. This makes us efficient thinkers.

But it can also trip us up.

Surprise is one of our basic emotions, the opposite of anticipation. It’s the feeling of “shock” we experience when we perceive something unexpected, something that breaks the pattern or creates a new link. This shock can be positive (that’s how a joke works), or negative. For our change endeavor, we want to harness positive energy.

In our communication of the proposed change, we should include something that creates an initial surprise. A good way of planning this is to establish first the “normal” expectation for the communication medium or message. What is the anticipation? Let’s write it down (so that we can remind ourselves to make sure that this is NOT what we will do).

Now, we need to introduce an inconsistency - disrupt the anticipation - in order to give the jolt that breaks through the noise.

There are probably many ways to create such a disruption, including the message itself, how it is communicated, or who is communicating. I think we can be a little daring, in particular, when there is a lot of noise to shout over.

In fact, the issue seems strikingly similar to the task of an artist. Of course, the definition of “good art” is subjective and elusive. But at least there appears to be a lot of consensus that good art provokes an emotional response in the viewer. It does not leave us indifferent. It makes us notice what was obscured, or tempts us to perceive something from a slightly new angle.

Edgar Degas suggested that "art is not what you see, but what you make others see." Pablo Picasso was even stronger: "Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth."

And that’s exactly what we want to do as well when we’re making change.

Speaking to the Elephant (1/7)

2010-12-20T08:34:00.000-08:00

When we think about change, we often talk about “winning the hearts and minds”. We know that recognizing and addressing the emotional aspects of change is at least as important as the rational argument.

In Dan and Chip Heath's highly recommendable book "Switch", this is of course “motivating the elephant”.

Having tried the framework a few times, I have found it to be insightful and a great starting point. However, some elements of are still a little vague and their application is not as easy as it may seem. Perhaps we can do even better. In particular, if we want to enable more people to apply these ideas, who may not have the time and opportunity to learn the approach through trial and error.

Perhaps we need to put a little more process into this. Or, to stay in the Switch terminology, script the critical moves to make changes happen.

And while we are at it, perhaps we can expand the framework and incorporate additional insights from the field of psychology, which also asks the question how people change.

Here are some ideas – critical moves that are anchored in the Switch framework, but (hopefully) provide a little more orientation about what we can actually do when we apply it.

I want to start with the emotional side – how we can motivate the elephant.

The following six critical moves could be useful:

(1) Give a jolt
(2) Make it personal
(3) Shrink the change
(4) Tune your orchestra
(5) Link it up
(6) Create the touch

Of course, headlines like these are still rather cryptic (except perhaps “shrink the change” that we know very well). I am planning to elaborate each point over the coming days (or weeks) – one by one as I find time to write them down.

Two Fundamental Laws of Change

2010-08-03T07:07:00.000-07:00

(1) Everybody wants change.

(2) Nobody wants change.

We must be mad.

2,500 years ago Heraclitus observes that “nothing is permanent except change.” Around the same time, Gautama Siddharta, founder of Buddhism, has the same insight.

500 years later it’s in the bible, too: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

After philosophy and religion, enter science. "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." No, not by Charles Darwin, by another C.D. . An American lawyer, as it were (Clarence Darrow).

More advances(?) are made as politicians pick up on the idea: “The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” (Harold Wilson)

“Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can.” (You know who)

Change permeates our lives. Apparently.

Allegedly.

Or maybe not?

Niccolo Machiavelli, one of the first management consultants , observes in The Prince: “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."

Well, that was almost 500 years ago.
Surely things have changed(!) since those darker medieval times.

Quick (and quite unscientific) scan through recent news headlines. Within a few minutes we find this : “Saying that reforming education is perhaps ‘THE economic issue of our time’…Mr. Obama, in his speech before the 100th anniversary convention of the National Urban League, acknowledged ‘some controversy’ about his education initiative, which he attributed partly to ‘a general resistance to change, a comfort with the status quo’.”

Aha. We also learn reports that unions plan to protest a change in rent law. In Boise school leaders protest a change to the school day.

Overseas, same thing. Protesters against plans for a new Sainsbury's supermarket in a Hampshire (UK) village have handed a petition signed by more than 4,000 people to a council. Tour agents protest change in rules for Chinese tourists. Greek workers protest the austerity plan.

In Portugal, a top union leader vows to intensify social resistance , and thousands in Russia protest government in “A Day of Wrath”. Even in consensus-oriented Denmark, they are going at it: “Danish Citizens Protest Wind Turbines” , and Danish unions protest the already mentioned Greek(!) restructuring measures.

This leads us to a first hypothesis about two fundamental laws of change:

Everybody wants change: We vote for it all the time: “Obama wins on message of change” . “David Cameron: only Conservatives offer 'real change' ”. “France votes decisively for Sarkozy and change.” Even George W. Bush (remember him?) threw his Stetson into the ring: “This nation is daring and decent and ready for change.”

Nobody wants change: So “change is inevitable?” Hmmm – my retirement and death are also inevitable. But if we could just hold off on these changes for a few decades more, I would really appreciate it, thank you very much. Things are actually going pretty well. Especially in my job. It’s not that I’m against change - let’s just wait for the right moment. Which is not now. I’ll get back to you.

We must be mad. Or, perhaps, change is just more fun as a spectator sport.

A few feathers short of the whole duck

2010-06-06T22:45:00.000-07:00

Hans (or previous blog post fame) has all his change management ducks in a row.

Why the sinking feeling?

True - situation analysis, case for change, cross-functional team with sense of urgency, prototype solution, communication and consultation, new performance metrics, aligned reward systems, training - all these together can create the right conditions for change.

However, the people in Hans’s organization are not exposed to them at the same time, nor with the same intensity. They will have a hard time catching up with conclusions that to Hans and his core team - having wrestled with them for months already - now appear straightforward.

Hans is trying to do the right thing - communicate and get feedback. But how do you give meaningful feedback if the details of the new strategy are not fully understood and digested? Providing this understanding will be the job of training, but that is later. Mispositioning the townhall meeting as the opportunity for the field force to provide their input may actually backfire: now they are asked for their contributions but cannot provide meaningful suggestions, while later, when they could add good ideas, the book‘s already closed.

The idea of change as a process tempts us to address change management in a sequential way. But it is an unfortunate misconception that is perhaps linked to the Kandinsky problem of inappropriate abstraction.

When we look at change as something that groups go through, it may indeed appear as a process that builds momentum and plays out over time. But on the individual level, where the change in fact happens, the image of the process does not hold true.

We switch from one mindset to a new one instantaneously, in a binary way. We either think A or B, but not a little bit A while we are halfway to B. We may change our mind back and forth frequently (as politicians and marketers are well aware), but we are only in one state at any one time.

We change our mind, when the right conditions are in place. Thus, if we go about it in the sequential way, we are just delaying the change, because it takes longer until all the elements are in place that together tip the scale.

Sequence and Consequence

2010-06-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

Most change management programs are based on the explicit or implicit assumption that change is a process, something that occurs over time (sometimes a lot of time), and that can be influenced, or channeled, through step-by-step interventions along the way. John Kotter, for example, is adamant that successful change needs to go through a number of steps (he recommends eight) in a certain sequence, and that skipping a step or getting too far ahead creates significant problems .

An unintended consequence of this approach is that the conditions that together enable individuals to change are never in place at any particular time. In the best case this causes delays. In less fortunate situations the whole initiative falls apart, as ground that has already been won is lost again.

Hans, new VP of Sales at Unirobotics, a sizeable technology company, has all steps in diligent order to launch a major sales effectiveness initiative to revitalize flagging sales: analyze the situation, make the case for change, build a cross-functional team and instill sense of urgency, develop prototype solution, launch communication and consultation process, set up performance metrics, align reward systems, conduct training.

His cross-functional leadership team is highly energized – but Hans knows that he can not just drive implementation top-down. The communication and consultation process culminates in a large townhall meeting with the sales force.

Hans and key members of his team take the podium to talk about the changes and share their excitement. Hans explains the rationale for change, how everybody in the sales organization will benefit, and how they will be trained to get up to speed quickly. No jobs will be lost, and the expectation that everybody will make have the chance to make more money lightens the mood.

“Most important, however”, Hans said, “is having an open conversation. What do you think about the new strategy? What questions do you have? Do you have additional ideas? I am inviting your candid feedback!”

Dead silence in the room – except for the noise of people shifting in their seats. Or picking at sleeves. Un-crossing and re-crossing legs. A few coughs in the audience.

Hans tries again: “Come on, there must be some questions you have. Anything you want to know. We can really have a dialog here. Who wants to start?”

This is getting embarrassing.

At last, relief is brought by somebody asking how frequently training will be offered and where it will be conducted. “Great question! Here’s what we are planning…” and Hans confidently elaborates on the details of the train-the-trainer concept his team has devised. This prompts the question if there will be online training available as well. A random question is thrown in about the new expenses policy that came into effect a few weeks ago. Hans has no difficulties supplying satisfying answers. He is on a roll again.

There are a few more questions about the incentive plan…and finally Hans can close the meeting, summarizing the next steps and wishing everybody a successful start into the new quarter. “I will see you all then when we kick-off the trainings! Safe travels!” Applause from the audience. People get up and leave.

Nobody has expressed concerns or objections. This went quite well, didn’t it? But why can’t I shake this creeping sense of a letdown? Why do I sense that the sales force is still skeptical? Am I just being paranoid? Nobody challenged the initiative – that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Don't Kandinsky my Change! (4/4)

2010-05-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

If we ignore what happens on the level of the individual, we are missing the probably most important key to understanding and shaping change.

Behaviors change as a result of changed mindsets or thoughts. And groups have no mind; groups do not think. Thinking is a bio-electrochemical process running in our brain. Thinking - and changing our mind - we do this on our own.

Without understanding what happens on the individual level, we are not “in control” of the change at all. We act and then let change happen rather than make change happen. Then, we are often surprised by unexpected results.

This happens to Paul at XitSoft. Because the cross-functional group appears to come to a consensus, and the project is moving forward as planned, he is overlooking important clues from the reactions and emotions of individuals that are far from resolved.

Paul appears to be able to appease the initial negative emotional responses by expressing empathy (acknowledging that this will be a lot of change, it will not be easy and they will have to be very careful), by evoking reassuring mental images like "right support, training and coaching", and of course by his engaging the stakeholders in a collaborative approach.

However, the perception that all stakeholders are now "on board" is an illusion.

The participants sign up to their own interpretations of what support, training etc. may mean. The strange thing is that in doing this they likely have a positive bias because they want to be constructive, productive contributors to making their firm better. Thus the "buy-in" becomes a collective illusion. "The more abstract the form, the more clear and direct its appeal..."(Wassily Kandinsky)

Later, those project managers that do not use the new approach "this time" will not see themselves as change blockers. They agree with the new approach in principle, it just does not "feel right" in their particular situation. This is an important pointer that the underlying emotional dissonance has not been resolved, just swept under the carpet in collective self-deception.

Or, to put it differently, our change project has become:

“Abstract Art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered” (Al Capp)

Don't Kandinsky my Change! (3/4)

2010-05-26T04:06:00.000-07:00

So what is going on here?

Paul may have fallen into the trap of inappropriate abstraction. A Kandisky situation: great art that (almost) everybody can love but that has very different meaning to different people.

The problem is that we tend to abstract to the group level - while the change happens (or not) on the individual level. Consider this:

The objective of change management efforts is usually to cause a group of people – a team, a department, a company, a community – to change how they perform activities, to adopt new behaviors, or to draw new conclusions from experiences and information (e.g., we may talk about "making the sales and marketing departments more customer-centric", "adopting more eco-friendly processes in our industry", "winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people", "change The World"...)

Yet when we perceive that organizations or groups are changing, what we really see is merely the aggregation of many individual changes. Change always happens on the individual level. In a person’s brain. Changing means that we think about an issue one way, then “change our mind” to a different view (another “mindset”). Even if the result is an action, the thought comes first.

Consequently, any mechanism we may want to utilize to initiate change in a group must create the conditions for the individual to change their mind. However, many change management approaches appear to overlook or brush over this subtle but important distinction between group and individual. This is understandable – if we want to change an organization with thousands of people, dealing with the individuals may indeed seem like a daunting - probably impossible - task.

Thus we seek refuge in means to move people en masse: “broadcast” communication of a vision, presentations of strategies (townhall meetings are a favorite) and trainings. We move boxes around on our orgcharts, draw pretty process diagrams, and provide bible-thick “how-to” manuals. We try to instill a sense of urgency, develop the case for change, build guiding coalitions, remove structural barriers, plan for “quick wins”, empower employees, create a new culture etc.

Yet it is striking that none of these recipes is specific about the thought processes and mindsets of the individual. We remain at least one level removed from where and how change actually occurs. In fact, individuals usually feature only in as much as they represent certain archetypes (groups again): leaders and ambassadors of change, the "silent majority", passive and active resisters etc. And then our consideration is static, focused on the traits and behaviors we observe, but not on what makes them so.

(to be continued...)

Don't Kandinsky my Change! (2/4)

2010-05-25T04:49:00.000-07:00

Enter Paul, former Principal in a premier IT services group. His mission: to build a new project approach and be the change leader in its implementation at XitSoft.

Paul starts with developing a high-level vision. He secures the buy-in of the executive team, then sets up a cross-functional stakeholder group, bringing together representatives from account management and professional services in XitSoft’s industry verticals, finance and procurement. The first task, never to be underestimated, is to get everyone to buy into the advantages of a new and common project management and planning methodology.

The meeting of the cross-functional team starts off well. Paul eloquently summarizes the issues and highlights that the founding partners have made this initiative a top priority for the firm. The people around the table are nodding in agreement. Action - finally! About time we tackle these issues!

Paul then describes how other firms have addressed similar problems, finding significant success through more rigor and best practices in project management. He goes on to develop a vision for a “strawman” solution for XitSoft – how could a common project methodology look like, how would it impact the people and the business?

On Paul's right, the representatives of finance and procurement are listening intently. At the end of the table a few participants appear increasingly agitated. John, a seasoned account manager, cannot hold back: “This will make us slow and bureaucratic – if we want to kill our competitive advantage and the unique culture that has made us so successful, this is the way to do it.” “Right,” says Miriam, a senior project manager in the banking vertical. “If anything, this will create even more work. And we are already working 24/7; when should we do all this additional planning? And as everybody knows no plan survives contact with the enemy anyway!”

“I know this will mean a lot of change, and it will not be easy – so we will have to do this very carefully.” Paul tries to calm the group. “But let’s think about this rationally – clearly the current approach does not work – we all understand that. And we have good examples from other firms how they have done this – and very successfully, I dare say. I think that our firm is now at a stage where we are growing up, and this means that we have to give up some of our old ways. These are growing pains, yes, but with the right support, training and coaching our people will succeed in the transition.”

The group proceeds to examine the details of the proposal. Ideas are advanced, challenged, and modified. Paul feels the meeting is getting back on track. Participants have had opportunity to voice their concerns and contribute suggestions - an open culture enabling this dialog is important - and after a "healthy debate" agreement about the way forward has been reached. The implementation work streams will be rolled out over the coming months. The first hurdle has been taken.

Fast forward three months. The work streams have progressed well. The new common project management methodology is defined. Implications on the firm’s competency model have been studied and modifications are being implemented. Training programs are ready, and the first project managers and their teams have gone through them. Their feedback is very positive.

But Paul is worried.

It appears that many project managers and their teams are surreptitiously impervious to actually applying the new approach in their real projects. He is discussing this concern with one of the founding partners: “Don’t get me wrong. They are saying all the right things, agree with the methodology, and claim they will make use for it – but they always seem to find a reason why it is not appropriate for this particular situation. ‘Next time, for sure, but this time you will understand why we have to do it this way…’”

Sounds somewhat familiar? What's going on here?

(to be continued...)

Don't Kandinsky my Change! (1/4)

2010-05-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

If you happen to own an original picture like this you may feel very lucky (and rich). Congratulations!

Change management is sometimes regarded as art. If it becomes abstract art, we may be in trouble.

And many of us have had our Kandisky experiences. Like this one:

XitSoft is an IT consulting and software integration firm. Starting from humble beginnings in one of the founders’ home office, the company has been enjoying more than a decade of steady growth and is now employing over a thousand people. Profitability is great. The culture has remained entrepreneurial. No frills. Things are getting done. Strong project managers – hands-on and pragmatic - are proud to deliver even in the face of the most challenging odds. Unparalleled responsiveness to customers, achieving the “impossible”, is the hallmark of the firm’s value system - and the key ingredient to continuing success.

But all is not well.

Projects are getting done, but with a lot of drama and pain. Personnel turnover is absurdly high. In exit interviews employees point to the long hours, frequent all-nighters, and the lack of respect of individuals’ social life and commitments. During one of the more and more frequent crisis meetings, the founding partners come to accept that the firm’s project management capability needs to be raised to a significantly higher level. It is no longer enough to deploy a few good project managers to rally the teams and put out fires. And the firm’s hero mentality – embodied and perpetuated in many “war stories” - has become more damaging than productive.

(...to be continued)

The Myth of Urgency

2010-03-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

One of the frequently touted ingredients in the recipe for successful change is to “create a sense of urgency”.

People cling to the status quo, they must be driven out of their comfort zones, they are self-serving change resisters and filibusterers whom we need to bomb relentlessly about the problems the organization is facing. We may even need to create an artificial crisis, a “burning platform” to get them moving (I didn’t make this up – these are all quotes from change management books).

Says change pope Kotter: “A really true sense of urgency, at an intellectual level, is the awareness there are huge opportunities, and probably huge hazards to deal with… In terms of behavior, a sense of urgency creates hyper-alert action so people don't get caught up in navel gazing…They dump low priority items, or delegate them to others because they want so much, at some gut level, to win. Their behavior becomes a role model for other people around them.”

Oh yeah? Quick reality check:

In the US, there are about 43,000 deaths in automobile accidents each year. That is about the same number as breast cancer. So I guess it’s significant. Now let’s imagine that there is a new disease that kills three times as many people. And you have it.

But there is good news: a medication exists that can cure you, without significant side effects. Will you take it?

What should be obvious apparently isn’t. Here’s a story:

A patient told his physician that he had a family history of heart trouble. But he was also an enthusiastic jogger, which should compensate for an admitted weakness for fast food and sweets. But it didn’t; the physical showed increased cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

The doctor prescribed a cholesterol-lowering medication, a statin. After taking the drug for a while, the patient's cholesterol came under control.

He stopped taking his medication.

At the next physical, the patient said: "My cholesterol is a little too high because I haven't exercised, and I ate all that Christmas dessert. But in six months it will be back to normal. I knew I was doing it, but what the heck. It was my last time, and I wanted to enjoy it."

He went back on the medication, then dropped off again.

Three years later he experienced chest pains and shortness of breath. 90% of his coronary arteries were clogged. Gravely close to a heart attack, he underwent emergency quadruple-bypass surgery, and a year later another four hours of surgery at the same hospital to fix a side effect from his bypass surgery. A few years later, he had to be hospitalized again to get two stents inserted to prop open a clogged heart artery. Sounds scary.

This is the patient:

Which brings us back to our (your) imaginary disease. A disease like this does exist. It kills 125,000 people in the US every year, but we seem to be astoundingly lethargic about it.

The disease is called non-adherence to a doctor's prescription.

Some statistics: According to a study by the University of Michigan, only 68 percent of corporate executives (that’s people who should be able to get that “drugs don't work in patients who don't take them” , and many of them will be involved in creating changes in their organizations) took their cholesterol lowering medication as prescribed by a doctor. And the researchers were already lenient: they gave an “as prescribed” mark if patients took their medication at least 80 percent of the time.

Data from the World Health Organization shows that only around 50% of people typically follow their doctors' orders when it comes to taking prescription drugs. For some conditions these rates are lower, for example 43% for acute asthma.

Acute asthma? I don’t know about you but that sounds urgent to me! Similar for AIDS: 50% (and is some studies as low as 17%)!

Across the board, the rule of thumb seems to be that 1/3 of patients take all their medicine, 1/3 take some, 1/3 don't take any at all. This statistic seems oddly familiar. Is that not the general success (rather lack thereof) record of change initiatives as well?

And even a real crisis doesn’t seem to do it, or at least not for long.

Three years after suffering a heart attack, less than half of the patients take their medications (44% for statins, 48% for beta blockers, 43% for ACE inhibitors and AII receptor blockers) . And that is only the relatively simple (maybe too simple?) task of taking a pill once a day. If it comes to more significant changes like abandoning an unhealthy lifestyle, ninety percent of patients who've had coronary bypasses can’t do it, even though it worsens their severe heart disease and will likely kill them.

So much for creating a “sense” of urgency. When even in a real urgency we seem to be unable to look after our own interest and take good advice to heart (pardon the pun), how much less impact will a much less tangible, perhaps even somewhat artificial, appeal to urgency have?

The definition of urgency is “conveying a sense of pressing importance, compelling immediate action or attention”. Can we really instill this from the outside?

Changing Behavior - Notes from a Pet Project

2010-02-24T18:24:00.000-08:00

This is our cat.
Her name is Willow.

Willow is a scaredy cat.
She does not like to go outside.

But she loves to slip through the kitchen door into our garage. Especially since the time we had a mouse making a real estate investment there, providing exquisite feline entertainment, until the mouse’s early demise.

No problem, we thought. If the cat does not want to go outside, let her be inside. If the cat wants to be in the garage instead, let her be in the garage. Who are we to micro manage where she wants to spend her free time?

Then one day we discovered what the cat actually does when she is in the garage.

Apparently she loves jumping on and off the hood of our cars. And she has fairly sharp claws. Not good for residual values.

The urgency for change was clear.

As was our vision: the garage is for cars. Who has ever heard of garaging a cat anyway? Why can’t she go outside like any other respectable cat?

Of course, clear communication of the vision is the core of every change management effort.

“Hello, come here, little pussycat. You know you’re not supposed to go in there any more, you know. Now be a nice cat… Willow! Don’t go into the garage! Don’t go there! Will…Don’t…! Stop that – now come back out!”

Cat one, humans zero.

Ok, so perhaps we need to change the organization around here. We’ll close the kitchen door leading to the garage and keep it locked.

I come home from shopping. Drive into the garage. Get out. Get shopping bags from trunk. Open door from garage to kitchen. A grey flash - cat is in the garage, under the car.

I put down the bags. Find a broom to chase the car from under the car back into the house. Success! I slam the door.

Cat is in the house. I am still in the garage, with my shopping bags. Not exactly what I had in mind. I can hear that the cat is behind the door, ready to race out as soon as I open it.

Cat two, humans zero.

Ok, probably the cat needs training and incentives!

This works like a charm! Within a couple of days, Willow has adopted a whole new set of behaviors.

And so have the humans. We have started to call the process Supplemental Nutrition Acquisition Capability (SNAC). This is how it works:

“Opening” gambit: Door ajar.
Step 1: Cat races into garage.
Step 2: Human puts out bowl with “Can’t Believe It’s Not Mouse” cat treat in house.
Step 3: Cat shows herself, sniffs, meows. Stays in garage.
Step 4: Human increases portion size.
Step 5: Cat comes into house. Eats treat.

Repeat every time “opening” gambit occurs (3-4 times a day, sometimes more, depending on need for human mobility).

Cat three, humans …well, one – let’s say humans get awarded one consolation point because the cat is no longer interested in jumping on the cars (note to self: remember to increase budget for cat food).

Then something happened.

Last week it suddenly became freezing cold and we had two snow storms. And our garage door got stuck in the open position.

The cat has not made one move to get into the garage. Not even when we leave the door open longer just to tease her. She has found a warm and cozy place on an armchair. She is not even interested in the SNAC program anymore.

* * *

Behavior changes do occur. But not necessarily because of what we do to initiate them. Or predictably with the results we intended. Or because there was some “resistance” to change we overcame.

Behavior changes occur when the right conditions are in place. So we need to put the right conditions in place to win.

Epilog: Our garage door is not yet fixed. The weather remains frigid. The cat continues to stay in the house. A stray has moved into our garage, which offers her shelter from the arctic storms outside.

The Myth of Change Management

2010-01-04T14:58:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the greatest myth in change management lies in the term itself – the presumption that change is the outcome of a process, and that this process can be “managed”.

This dogma reflects a mechanical world view of cause and effect and is rooted in the scientific management ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor and his followers, who taught us to observe, measure and optimize manufacturing workflows and tools to improve efficiency and labor productivity.

Fired by enthusiasm for the rigor and objectivity of the method, and in a strange anthropomorphism in reverse, we readily transfer the logic and characteristics of manipulating physical objects and workflows to progressively more abstract business elements: systems, processes, structures, roles, responsibilities, behaviors and culture (Taylor himself already advocated scientific management for university and government organizations, among others).

Such daring extrapolation of insights in one particular area to some more universal truth appears to be a common affliction befalling in particular management theorists, as witnessed by a curious compulsion to make the science “harder” by appropriating physical laws or playing fast and loose with images and catchphrases from natural sciences.

Economic Darwinism (adapt or perish!), “invisible” market forces and economic balances, the “natural laws of economics” , “financial tsunamis” and other disasters (acts of God?), the “biology of business” etc. - all captivate our imagination but remain conveniently shrouded in a certain mystery. It is perhaps not by accident that we commonly speak of management “gurus” who lead us from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge in such matters .

Thus, here we have the change manager as social engineer: if organizations work like machines, we just need to understand how to manipulate the right levers, and we can reconfigure a process or an organization to our heart’s content. We “defrost a hardened status quo” , change parts around, and “refreeze” (to make changes “stick”). The techniques to do this can be analyzed, taught and learnt.

If the expected change fails to materialize – and everybody seems to recognize that results of change efforts are more often than not disappointing - it is because we didn’t understand what these levers were, or because we neglected to operate them effectively or in the correct sequence. But despair not – the next change management monograph, best-practice checklist and how-to framework is only a few clicks away to remedy this gap.

And so the cycle can start again: acknowledging that change management is really hard, we are offered new hope in the next “8 Steps” , “12 Principles” , “50 Key Facts” or “100 Success Secrets” for creating sustainable change (an oxymoron?).

Until the next change management train wreck.

The Worst Salespeople

2010-01-01T18:52:00.000-08:00

I recently overheard a sales representative from a well known technology company. He just came back from a visit at his largest account.

“We have launched a great new product. It is really leading edge and will add tremendous value to our customers, helping them optimize their business and achieve unprecedented growth. However, although I have already brought it several times to my client, and demonstrated it ad nauseam to all departments, they just don’t get it. They rest on their laurels of having been successful in this business for so long and now they think they know it all. It’s like hitting a wall - they reject anything that is new, that might challenge the status quo. I just don’t understand why they don’t embrace this innovation that I KNOW will help them wipe out their competition. Instead, they are afraid and put up all these barriers. It should be a no-brainer to sell them this thing. Their complacency is so frustrating. I almost hope they would run into a real crisis that forces them to get off their butts!”

Most will probably agree that this salesperson will never make the sale. The failure to make the product benefits meaningful for the customer is obvious, albeit apparently not to the sales rep, who instead blames the customer for being both too stupid to get it and too complacent to act.

His attitude comes across as self-centered, arrogant, impatient and frustrated. Rapport and trust - key ingredients of successful selling - are blatantly absent in this customer “relationship”. Which, if anything, will likely keep on deteriorating.

We would not be surprised if the customer slams the door to this supplier and keeps it locked for a really long time. And we should probably send the rep to a thorough selling skills make-over. Or fire him.

Ok, now I should perhaps come clean: I admit I took some liberties when I described the scene above. This was not a technology company, but a pharmaceutical giant. And they would never ever treat one of their customers like this. Of cause not, that is as basic as selling 101.

In reality, this was one of their senior executives talking about the roll-out of a new field force coaching initiative for their Chinese operations.

“We have launched a great new sales force coaching program. It is really leading edge and will add tremendous value to our field force, helping them optimize how they sell and achieve unprecedented growth. However, although we have trained all regional and district managers ad nauseam in the new process, guidelines and tools, they just don’t get it. They rest on their laurels of having been successful in this business for so long and now they think they know it all. It’s like hitting a wall - they reject anything that is new, that might challenge the status quo. I just don’t understand why they don’t embrace this new approach that I KNOW will help them wipe out the competition. Instead, they are afraid and put up all these barriers. It should be a no-brainer to implement this thing. Their complacency is so frustrating! I almost hope we would run into a real crisis in China that forces them to get off their butts!”

In one form or another, we have heard such statements before. They seem to be exemplary for a very common but unfortunate set of management assumptions: that people are inherently complacent and resistant to change, that they cling to the status quo and we must “drive them out of their comfort zones”. That they need to be aligned to a vision and change-managed to do better for themselves and the company.

Nobody would think of selling a product in this way to a customer. Why do we think we can “sell change” this way to the people in our organizations?

The Myth of Unprecedented Change (2)

2009-12-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

Authors claiming “unprecedented change” typically refer to something like the last 30 years and cite, depending on their particular field of interest: the internet, mobile communications, the end of the Cold War, AIDS, September 11 and the war on terror, globalization, or the series of financial busts ranging from the ‘87 crash, to the internet bubble and the current financial crisis.

Granted – that is impressive! But have anterior periods been any less fraught with change?

Let’s have a look. The period of the 50s, 60s and 70s presents us with (in no particular order): de-colonization, sexual revolution, Civil Rights and Women’s Lib, baby boom, Vietnam and Watergate, Rock & Roll and Woodstock generation, oil shocks, mass consumerism, the rush to the suburbs, Cold War, proliferation of computers, and the space race. Not exactly small feats either.

So perhaps is this transformational expediency a phenomenon that has been going on for a little longer than we first thought? Looking another thirty-odd years back we encounter the automobile, Total War and atom bomb, the Jazz age and the roaring 20s, communism and fascism, depression, moving pictures, radio, television, holocaust and mass migration, the airplane, modern art.

Ok, at this point we may concede that the whole last century has been pretty changy. But surely we must find the serenity of the olden days, when mankind was innocently wallowing in complacency, somewhere?

The late 18th century perhaps? Not really: Enlightenment, secularization, American Revolution, French revolution, abolishment of slavery (in Europe, that is), in fact the 18th century is frequently labeled the “age of Reason and Change [sic]”.

Way back then, for example the early 16th century? No such luck: colonization of America (and other places), protestant reformation, Renaissance culture, the discovery that the Earth moves around the sun, first flush toilets (!)…

None of this is to deny that change occurs. Of course it does - already more than 2,500 years ago the Greek philosopher Heraclitus developed a doctrine of change being central to the universe: “Everything flows, nothing stands still. The only thing that doesn’t change and perish is change itself”.

In fact, that change is a key topic echoing throughout the ages is proof to the point that this is by no means a recent phenomenon, nor accelerating in a way that “is not even linear (1)” as some scholars like to put it.

Unprecedented change is just a myth.

But we still use it as a comforting ritual chant – something to cling to, that sounds familiar – when we do the magic that is managing people and organizations.
____________________________________
(1) e.g. John Kotter, in an August 2008 interview with Harvard Business publishing editor Paul Michelman

The Myth of Unprecedented Change (1)

2009-12-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

According to conventional wisdom the world is changing at an ever faster rate, organizations must adapt to this change in order to survive, and management’s prime responsibility is to avoid impending doom by making these changes happen.

Just about any book on management written since the seventies (and possibly before, I didn’t check) asserts this orthodoxy - usually somewhere near page one - providing convenient context and suitable concern to compel the reader to digest the rest of the oeuvre.

We hear that “the extent, type and pace of change are breathtaking as well as terrifying.” Or: “The amount of significant, often traumatic, change in organizations has grown tremendously over the past two decades”. Sometimes very specific, like: “The advertising industry is passing through one of the most disorienting periods in its history”. Or a little broader in scope: “The planet has seen unprecedented change”.

This meta-narrative of “unprecedented change” is believed by scholars, written down by their students, regurgitated in the media, and gladly picked up by executives to provide justification for specific change efforts (aka “corporate transformations”). Politicians are not immune to this affliction either, as demonstrated by the apparent addiction of the Obama administration to employing the word “unprecedented” with the fervor of a teenager’s use of “like”.

Never, however, is there any proof offered that the speed of change has increased, or that the changes we experience have more dramatic implications than in other times.

Cry Now

2009-12-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

Tales from the Frontline
A change management drama in four and a half acts

The following is based on a true story.
Only company names and some identifying details have been changed.

- Epilogue -

Six years after the start of the initiative, and after spending three times the original budget for technology and systems integration services alone, most countries have finally adopted the new system.

Some basic behaviors of the customer-centric approach have been achieved. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that management thinks that many sales people just “go through the motions”, either leaving key planning templates blank or cutting and pasting entries.

In the meantime, market conditions have significantly evolved in most countries, and new approaches such as value based selling are becoming core elements of the sales process – and these are not part of the system that has been implemented.

MinnTec is planning to change key aspects of the sales process to implement a new selling approach.

They are on the lookout for a new system to support it...

Armageddon Freestyle

2009-11-30T09:46:00.000-08:00

Tales from the Frontline
A change management drama in four and a half acts

The following is based on a true story.
Only company names and some identifying details have been changed.

- Act 4 -

Managers of several countries voice concerns about some of the basic premises of the new customer-centric approach. They feel that their people are not ready to analyze their customers in the new way and be empowered to make key resource allocation decisions themselves. This is too much, too soon.

The leadership team reiterates the benefits of the new approach and points to the elaborate training and coaching program that has been developed to make sure that everybody will have the right skills to succeed.

In the meantime, the new customer relationship management software has been configured. Two countries embark on pilot implementations. Soon they articulate a strong need for customization of system functionality to their specific local needs.

Global accepts customization for pilot countries. As a result, the customer relationship management software becomes bigger and more complex. Technical problems emerge in the systems implementation in the pilot countries.

A new IT director joins the leadership team for the initiative. He has a background in top-5 IT consulting firms and experience in large scale systems implementation. He is very worried about system complexity.

Strong push for simplification and standardization. Global pushes back more. The discussion between global and local about customization becomes contentious. Several countries complain that the new approach does not meet their needs, postpone implementation.

Top management gets involved. They are very concerned about country reactions. A lot of questions about the process and technology choices.

Roll-out process stalls until issues can be resolved

Emergency meetings at HQ level.

Change leader fired from his role.

To be continued...

Ain't Nuttin But Music

2009-11-24T07:24:00.000-08:00

Tales from the Frontline

A change management drama in four and a half acts

The following is based on a true story.
Only company names and some identifying details have been changed.

- Act 3 -

Supported by a phalanx of big-name consulting firms, MinnoTec’s management team starts to map out a detailed change management and implementation strategy. They have studied all the books, and then some. This will be a "best practice" exercise.

The communication process begins with proving the need for change and showing the vision of the new “customer-centric” sales and marketing approach and the opportunity it provides. A business case shows the expected impact on the top and bottom line.

The implementation plan envisiones a global roll-out of the new strategy in four phases over two years. Each phase includes a group of participating affiliates from both larger and smaller markets.

The change process is elaborate. It covers extensive validation and refinement of the proposed new processes in road shows and interactive workshops. In townhall meetings with sales and marketing managers and other stakeholders from the fifteen participating countries, the management team emphasizes the importance of a collaborative approach between global HQ and the affiliates. Ample opportunity will be provided to discuss and agree on best practices, gather country feedback, and adapt the processes to local market specificities where necessary.

A comprehensive training program has been developed. It will support the transition of sales and service representatives and their managers to the customer-centric approach and sustain behavioral changes for the long-term. The program offers presentations and demonstrations, practical exercises and case examples, short video clips and interactive media for self-study. Within each affiliate, a cascaded approach will engage senior management and then roll-out the new sales approach through a train-the-trainer program: professional trainers will train first the field managers, who then in turn will train the people in their teams.

Communication is focused on the new processes and desired behavior changes. The new customer relationship system is clearly positioned as an enabler for the selling process (vs. making this a technology initiative).

A steering group consisting of senior managers guides the initiative, supported by a project office staffed with internal experts and consultants to manage the details of the change management and roll-out process across countries. This group is led by an experienced and very dynamic top manager, who can look back on a distinguished career as sales representative and sales manager and knows exactly what the frontline job looks like.

And off we go!

To be continued...

Adrenaline Rush

2009-11-23T14:48:00.000-08:00

Tales from the Frontline
A change management drama in four and a half acts

The following is based on a true story.
Only company names and some identifying details have been changed.

- Act 2 -

MinnoTec had always taken pride in being an action oriented firm. They swiftly hired one of the Big-Three consulting firms to revamp the sales and marketing strategy. And a change management expert to implement it in the major markets in North America, Europe and Asia. And another consulting firm to develop a state-of-the-art CRM system to go with it. And a training company and a communication agency.

This was no time for modesty. “We will become the most customer focused, efficient and effective sales organization in the industry”. Substantial budgets – significantly more than 30 million US$ - were secured for task forces, workshops, training programs, information technology infrastructure and advisors.

New sales and marketing processes would transform the way thousands of employees and their managers in more than fifteen countries went about their daily work: how they analyzed markets, prioritized customers and understood their needs, how they planned sales activities and events, and how they coordinated their efforts across the whole organization. “No more silos – we’re all customer-centric now.“

Employees would be significantly more empowered and motivated. They would be able to bring their customers relevant information, make good use of their time and be regarded as experts.

From the outset, effective change management was identified as crucial for a successful implementation. Especially for middle management, leaving behind old thinking might be difficult. The challenge was be exacerbated by the sheer number of countries and stakeholders involved.

To be continued...

Nobody's Perfect

2009-11-20T12:48:00.000-08:00

Tales from the Frontline
A change management drama in four and a half acts

The following is based on a true story.
Only company names and some identifying details have been changed.

- Act 1-

Once there was a medical technology company called MinnoTec, which marketed a range of devices, diagnostic products and laboratory instruments to healthcare providers and research laboratories around the world.

The medical devices market was enjoying double-digit growth rates benefiting from ageing baby boomers with active lifestyles, rising health consciousness and growing middle classes in emerging markets (OK, now we know where some of our healthcare troubles come from but that's another story...).

Anyway, for MinnoTec things weren't going so well. In fact, performance looked outright abysmal. The mood in the leadership team was either panicky-frantic or depressed-apathic, depending on the day.

The firm, or "THE FIRM", as it was endearingly known to its employees, was clearly "facing some challenges". Or, perhaps, a "fundamental opportunity to validate basic assumptions of our value creation model". By which we now come to understand that MinnoTec was trailing its industry peers, market share had been lost in many segments, the share price had slumped and there were rumors of a possible takeover.

Once MinnoTec had been admired as a leading innovator with an exquisite product line-up. Now customers perceived the company as inflexible, unresponsive, and quite frankly often out of touch with their needs.

Internally, the company's report card was also no more than flunking grade. MinnoTec’s management culture was experienced as top-down and rigid, an “army-style command and control model”.

High performers left the company and took their relationships with them.

Clearly, a new approach was needed.

To be continued...

The following is based on a true story.
Only company names and some identifying details have been changed.

Perhaps Creating Change Is Not So Easy After All

2009-11-20T07:46:00.000-08:00

Consider this:

“58% of change initiatives failed to reach their goals” (1)
“63% of total quality or change initiatives in the high tech industry failed to achieve the anticipated improvements” (2)
“60% failure rate for all organizational change efforts” (3)
“90% of TQM projects miss their target” (4)
“Business Process Reengineering fails 50-70% of the time” (5)

And the list goes on...

With all the books, workshops, experts, best practices, success factors and other "good advice" over the last 25 years or so, we get the sinking feeling that change management as it is preached and practiced today does not appear to be very effective at all.

(1) McKinsey Survey, LaClair, J.A and R.P. Rao, 2002
(2) Schaffer R.H. and Thompson, H.A (1992) Successful change management begins with results, Harvard Business Review, January-February, 80-9 80
(3) Mourier, P. (1998). How to implement organizational change that produces results. Journal of Performance Improvement, 37(7), 19-29.
(4) Crosby, P. (1989) Quality is free. New York, McGraw Hill
(5) Steward, T.A. (1993) Reengineering: the Hot New Managing Tool, Fortune, 128, 4 pp 32-37

Change Management Is Straightforward!

2009-11-20T05:03:00.000-08:00

Change Management is a popular topic.

Searching for the term “Change Management” on Google yields more than 6 million hits. “Change Management Expert” still finds over 9,000 entries.

Amazon.com offers more than 20,000 books, articles and other media on the topic, including some unimaginatively called “Change Management”(1), others offering “A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools & Techniques of Organizational Change”(2), a “Change Management Masterclass”(3), or, perhaps less ambitious, a “Change Management Pocket Guide”(4).

For the so inclined there is also a “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Change Management”(5), or you can read how to go “Beyond Change Management”(6).

One can indulge in “The Theory and Practice of Change Management”(7), learn how to “Lead Change toward Sustainability"(8), “Achieve Breakthoughs”(9), “Thrive on Change”(10), just “Make the Most of Change”(11) or - an alarming thought - “Change to Strange”(12).

It appears there are at least “100 Success Secrets” (13), “Twelve Principles”(14) and “50 Key Facts”(15) for transforming organizations.

With the abundance of literature and advice about the topic, creating successful change should be a straightforward exercise.

(1) e.g. J. Hiatt and T. Creasey, 2003 or M. Hughes 2006
(2) E. Cameron and M. Green, 2004
(3) M. Green again, 2007
(4) K. Nelson and S. Aaron, 2005.
(5) J. Davidson, 2001
(6) D. Ackerman and L. Ackerman Anderson, 2001
(7) J. Hayes, 2002
(8) B. Doppelt, 2003
(9) B. P. Lientz and K. P. Rea, 2003
(10) N. Booth, 2008
(11) W. Bridges, 2003
(12) D. M. Cable, 2007
(13) G. Blokdijk, 2008
(14) R. C. Reale, 2005
(15) G. Ventris, 2004