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BBuilding orgaanisational change cappability – paart 2 of our mmonthly serries

Howw do you assess yyour oorganisationnal channge caapabillity – tthe rolle of thhe Inittiative Legaacy Asssessment

The roole of the Initiative Legacy AAssessmment. In last mmonth’s newwsletter articcle we took a broad vieew on the caapability needed to deliver cchange in yoour organissation. This moonth we takee a deeper ddive into thiis, focusing on the capability needded to actuaally implemeent quality ssolutions to deliver sus tainable chaange. Speccifically, wee look at thee role of oone of our a ssessment tools – the Initiative Leegacy Asseessment – inn helping yoou understaand your organisationaal capabilityy for changee.

What iis the Inittiative Leggacy Asssessmentt? The Initiative Legaccy Assessmment (ILA) iss a powerful diagnosticc that is admministered aand processed online, aand which hhelps you too take a struuctured lookk at the histoorical impacct of changge implemeentation withhin your orgganisation. It is a foundation off the PCI® mmethodologyy and uses 20 questionns - which mmap to the 66 PCI CSFFs or Criticaal Success Factors - too query the change envvironment foor potential risk areaas based onn the way c hange would have beeen implemented in the past. In change the old adaage very muuch applies – “if we do what we’vee always do ne, we get tthe results wwe’ve alwayys gotten”. Therefore tto improve iimplementaation successs, this tool allows uus to pinpoinnt areas of rrisk so as nnot to repeatt the mistakkes of the p ast.

What ttype of quuestions does the ILA ask?? The ILAA uses 2 diffeerent types of questionns to undersstand past cchange impplementationn: 1. Firstly asks wwhat we call an indicator question, of the exppected levels of

reesistance orr commitmeent to changge, based o n what we’vve typically seen in thee paast, e.g. “please selectt one statemment … thatt best descrribes the levvel of suppoort foor the changge ….” as sshown in moore detail below:

2. Then Risk prrofile questi ons are useed to help qqualify and eexplain the

reesistance/coommitment indicator abbove by shoowing a riskk profile agaainst the 20 diimensions tto identify specific barr iers and enablers to coommitment. See the shhort excerptt below:

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BBuilding orgaanisational change cappability – paart 2 of our mmonthly serries

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The tooll is availablee online viaa the Changgefirst portall which provvides the fleexibility to quickly aand easily sshare the quuestionnairee with groupps of peoplee via a dediicated, emailable link whic h allows resspondents tto completee their answwers online.

What ddoes the ILA reallyy tell you? Firstly, itt gives an inndication off what you ccan expect in terms of commitmennt, or resistance to any n ew change impacting tthe environment being assessed.

Inn this exampple analysiss the daata indicatees that: • there wouuld be a poppulation

of about 550% who arre acceptingg of the channge, but who neveer get to a feeeling of commitmeent

• we could assume thaat around 200% of peoplle impacted would strugggle with the change and may present ass resistant tto new way of woorking

• commitmeent levels inn the past havee not exceedded 30%

RResistance AAccepting Committment This datta may pushh you to askk two key quuestions heere: 1) Iss 30% sufficcient critica l mass for ssuccessful i mplementation?

2) WWhat are thee hot spots,, particularlyy for the 50 % in the middle, whichh could movve more peeople into thhe commitmment zone?

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Building organisational change capability – part 2 of our monthly series

The second level of analysis below helps you delve a little deeper here.

Here, the risk profile is pinpointing a small number of potential barriers to improving commitment levels – e.g. : • Inconsistent support from

informal leaders • Insufficient opportunities

for people to be involved in how the change unfolds

• Difficulty with incentivises and rewards for people’s extra efforts towards delivering the change

• A struggle to keep people informed with regular and timely communication about change progress

A common theme running through the risk profile is the gaps that appear to exist in the way people’s efforts are engaged. Many studies have connected high levels of employee engagement to better organisational performance and the final graph below indicates where to focus effort in terms of the 6 CSFs.

• Powerful engagement processes allows people involved in the change to become committed to it.

• They give people confidence that the change is real and not just hot air, and that there will be enough time and training for people

• This coupled with rewards for working in the new ways soon emphasises that continuing to stick to the status quo is not acceptable

Viewing and working flexibly with your data Importantly the data collected in the ILA is processed online and the graphs generated are quickly and easily dropped into existing internal reports in a number of formats including powerpoint, word etc. It is possible to export individual datasets in .CSV format for greater flexibility.

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Building organisational change capability – part 2 of our monthly series

You can also compare one data set with another, using a simple tick box and export function for a deeper analysis.

When and how should you use the ILA? The ILA is a flexible tool and there are a number of scenarios where it may be particularly useful including:

When you are starting a new project and you want to get a feel for how past performance has been

It may be that you are in the very early stages of change planning and are unable to tell people about the specific change but you want to get a feel for change capability

The change may already be happening and you want to get a feel for how things have been done to date

Perhaps you are new to the organisation and you want to get an outline feel for change capability in your new business

In terms of how you use it and who you decide to involve in the process, this will largely be dictated by the scenario you are facing. In broad terms the use of the ILA is best followed by focus groups that allow you to add qualitative information and create a sense of share ownership for data interpretation and action planning. Use it with the project team, a steering team, or even with a sample of line managers for a risk baseline.

Next month – a practical example of using the ILA In next month’s article we will take a closer use at the practical use of the ILA when we explain how to use it in context and consider a specific example from our Share A Method library on the Changefirst portal.

This article is part of a monthly series on building change capability. You can find out more in our previous articles:

Part 1: Do you know how much change capability your organisation has?

This paper is one of a series on a number of change related topics all of which are available from the Knowledge Centre on the Changefirst website.

You can also follow our progress in the following ways:

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