managing change: five fundamental observations

Copyright © 2008 ChangeWright Consulting (Pty) Ltd 1

FIVE FUNDAMENTAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT MANAGING CHANGE

by Ivan Overton, Jannie du Toit & Marilise Smit - ChangeWright Consulting, Johannesburg, South Africa

INTRODUCTION

Large-scale organisational change is often implemented by means

of projects that have tight deadlines, limited internal and external

resources and fixed budgets. Effective change management in such

project environments requires a practical, results-focused and

deadline-driven approach. A well-defined methodology and toolset

that can be adapted easily to unique requirements and

circumstances can enable change facilitators (which could be

organisational leaders, internal or external change managers or

even project team members) to add value rapidly and effectively.

A practical change methodology and efficient tools are usually

necessary but never sufficient preconditions for good change

management, for these are largely limited to what must be done. In

change management, how things are done is often at least equally

important. Getting the “how” right requires a thorough understanding

of how people react to change, a strong sense of what would be

appropriate to the culture of the organisation, and a good practical

understanding of what is required to establish change sustainably in

the organisation (which would also often require a good

understanding of the relevant industry). Furthermore, the change

facilitator has to maintain a fine balance between compassion and

objectivity, creativity and practicality, flexibility and delivering to plan.

The “what” can be learnt fairly easily, but the “how” comes rather

more slowly with experience. The really effective change facilitators

are those who are able to excel at both the “what” and the “how”,

while remaining authentic by contributing their own personal

uniqueness to particularly the “how”.1

This is a tall order indeed, and it is this combination of self, art and craft that makes really good change

management a far more difficult proposition than what may be suggested by a casual reading of material

dealing with the “what”.

In our work over the past years, in practising this deceptively difficult art and science, we have noticed

some fundamental truths that help to illuminate aspects of both the “how” and the “what”, and we would

like to share them here:

1 This statement might seem a little esoteric, and might be better explained by an example from the performing

arts: Robert de Niro would be considered by most movie buffs to be an excellent actor. He has played in a wide

variety of roles, always very convincingly. Yet in every role that he plays, he remains very recognisably Robert de

Niro. He brings himself into every role he plays, which makes for so much more authenticity. One cannot engage

effectively at a personal level with others as a change facilitator without similar authenticity.

Change management

is a combination of

science and art – in

the practice of change

management, the

“what” is often a

science, but much of

the “how” will always

remain an art, as much

a function of who you

are than of what you

know.

The “how” is also

where much of the

magic of change

management – and

many potential pitfalls

– may be encountered.


1. IT IS ALL TOO EASY TO UNDERESTIMATE CHANGE MANAGEMENT

In the course of our work, we have seen far too many instances where change management has been

under-resourced, initiated too late or stopped too early, neglected by leadership, and approached with

woefully inadequate standards and poor discipline.

It is true that the outcomes that we seek to achieve – alignment, awareness, knowledge, understanding,

participation, commitment, collaboration, adoption, respect, trust, empathy, and enthusiasm, to name but

a few, are quite simple in nature. And because they are concepts that are quite familiar to us from our

everyday life, we tend to think “no big deal, we can easily work that into our project”. But it is also true

that a failure to reach these outcomes characterises much of human social life with tragic consequences:

genocide, ethnic violence, state suppression and wars can be cited as examples where humans failed to

reach mutually acceptable outcomes by peaceful means.

At the more personal and intimate level of interpersonal relationships there is far more opportunity for

constructive engagement and communication, and one would expect a more positive picture. Alas, this is

not necessarily the case. Marriages end in divorce because couples fail to reach many of the same

outcomes that we listed above. Many parents struggle to understand their teenage children, and often

complain that it is well-nigh impossible to communicate with them. Children in turn complain about being

misunderstood, about not being heard by their parents.

The first step towards ensuring good change management is to avoid underestimating the difficulty,

complexity and scope of work required. If we paused to look beyond the apparent simplicity and familiarity

of change management outcomes like alignment or understanding, we would realise that these and

others like them remain extremely elusive across the full range of human co-existence, from a macro

social level through to the micro interpersonal level. There are no grounds for assuming that we can

achieve them any more easily within organisations.

2. PEOPLE WILL ONLY CHANGE IF THEY START DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY

Those who will be affected by organisational change can often only truly understand the impact of change

when they are required to start doing things differently. The foundation for sustainable change does not

lie only in the “head” and “heart” understanding and acceptance of what will change but requires the

“hands” being enabled to do things differently and experiencing things differently.

We may strike comparisons between the work that goes into a large organisational change initiative

before implementation and a wedding, and also between the actual implementation and married life. The

wedding (if it is a large one) involves many months of hard work and careful planning of every detail. It is

only once the reception and honeymoon are over and the newlyweds need to settle into married life that

they will be required to start doing things differently. How much actual preparation have most people done

and what type of support structures are in place for this stage of the journey?

Similarly, organisations often deploy large project teams (internal and external) with big budgets and

much fanfare around planned timeframes and activities to drive the implementation of large change

initiatives – a typical example of this would be the implementation of large integrated business information

systems. Once the system is live and people are actually required to do things differently, external

consultants “roll off” the project, internal resources go back to their old jobs and no or very little budget

remains to be applied to support and embed the change. This causes a loss of momentum and the drive

required to sustain the change.

It is at this stage that affected stakeholders should actually receive exceptional support and

encouragement to make the change happen and then stick. Newly implemented change is like a very tiny


seedling – it requires careful nurturing to allow it to grow and become strong enough to survive on its

own. Of course, it is not enough that the project team (or at least part of the team) merely maintains a

presence for some time after the implementation of change – they also need to be focused on the right

things, such as:

• Ongoing communication, support and guidance to stakeholders.

• Ongoing issue resolution.

• Effective “hand-over” processes and facilitation to ensure that key project activities required for

ongoing sustainability are carried over into the post-project phase by permanent role players who

accept responsibility for this.

• Alignment of organisational processes to support the new reality – this includes recruitment,

induction, performance management and training and development.

3. PEOPLE DON’T MIND CHANGE, BUT THEY DO MIND BEING CHANGED

People tend to be unaffected by communications regarding an impending change until they truly get to

understand (and ultimately feel) how it affects them. Simply telling people about change is not an effective

way of managing change - especially if the “telling” takes the (sadly quite typical) form of a bombardment

of unrealistic hype and inappropriate content through one-way, mass communication channels such as

email, intranets, electronic newsletters and posters. We call this “change management lite” – it may make

project leadership feel comfortable that the change management team is producing the goods, but could

in reality cause more problems than it supposedly solves by creating unrealistic expectations,

squandering valuable communication opportunities, creating more distance between stakeholders and

the project team, and ultimately leaving stakeholders overwhelmed with irrelevance, ill-equipped for the

change and feeling left out in the cold when the real change starts affecting them.

Those affected by change should not simply just “be told” about the change before it happens. There

should be less hype and more real interaction – people change when they talk, not when they listen. The

project team and organisational leadership should also take the time and make the effort to get to grips

with what the major change impacts will be and how to prepare for this – not only will this help to ensure

that there are no major surprises, but it will generate real content for constructive communication. Even

before the change starts affecting stakeholders, major change impacts should be pro-actively addressed

through well-laid enablement plans, and there should be ongoing dialogue and interaction in this regard.

Being involved in getting ready for change, and having a voice in this process has the effect of

empowering people and is a very valuable intervention in its own right.

4. PEOPLE WILL CHANGE: SOMETIMES BY SEEING THE LIGHT BUT MORE OFTEN BY FEELING

THE HEAT

Practical experience strongly supports Rogers’ innovation curve2 (as generalised by Rogers from an early

study by Bohlen and Beal in the field of agriculture3 and depicted below) - about 15% of people embrace

change quite readily (Rogers refers to them as Innovators and Early Adopters), and the remaining 85%

are naturally inclined (to varying extents) to be more resistant to change.

2 Rogers, Everett (2003). Diffusion of innovations. (5th ed). Free Press.

3 Bohlen, Joe M.; Beal, George M. (May 1957), "The Diffusion Process", Special Report No. 18 (Agriculture

Extension Service, Iowa State College)v


Readiness to change is strongly influenced by subjective perceptions of the desirability of the status quo

versus the desirability of a future state. If the status quo is more attractive (less negatives, more positives)

than the future state, change is far less likely.

The Innovators and Early Adopters in Roger’s innovation curve tend to see the positives in the future

state more readily – they have a tendency to “see the light” and require minimal change management

intervention (Innovators in particular can also often become effective change agents), whilst the

remaining 85% require substantially more change facilitation.

Innovation adoption curve categories4

Innovators Brave people, pulling the change, innovators are very important communication

mechanisms.

Early adopters Respectable people, opinion leaders, try out new ideas, but in a careful way.

Early majority Thoughtful people, careful but accepting change more quickly than average people do.

Late majority Sceptical people will use new ideas or products only when the majority is using it.

Laggards Traditional people, caring for the “old ways”, are critical towards new ideas and will only

accept it if the new idea has become mainstream or even tradition.

Most change facilitators are naturally inclined to focus on “the light” – the positive aspects of the future

state. Often the other component – “the heat” is neglected. However, as one moves from left to right on

Roger’s innovation curve, the tendency is for people to become increasingly resistant to seeing the light.

Without a careful application of some “heat”, it is therefore likely that a significant proportion of

stakeholders will attempt to extend the status quo, delaying timely and effective adoption of change (and

of course the benefits associated with the realisation of the change).

“Creating heat” simply means making the current situation less comfortable. This can be achieved

through mechanisms which include targeted dialogue, peer pressure, the careful introduction of elements

4 Rogers, Everett (2003). Diffusion of innovations. (5th ed). Free Press.


of competition among different organisational units, realignment of performance management

agreements, applying leverage through mechanisms for reward and recognition, and increasing

management pressure for change. It is important when working with interventions that are aimed at

creating more “heat” to remain true to the principle that no harm should be done to the individual or the

organisation.

The “creating heat” dynamic is well represented in the Nel’s ESP (Empathy, Space and Pressure)

approach to change5. Even though there will be a few people who adopt and commit to change quickly

and quite easily, there will always be others who experience discomfort in some form and find it harder to

commit to the change.

• Regardless of the phase of a change initiative, Empathy needs to be pervasive and requires, inter

alia, time to digest information and to interact with others to debate the change with freedom from

fear that questioning and voicing concerns will be interpreted as resistance or a cause for

victimisation.

• During the early stages of the change initiative methods should be employed that offer or create

personal Space that enable people to experience their early human responses to change and

thereby better prepare themselves for the change. Nel holds that methods that offer space create

the foundation upon which a creative minority and eventual critical mass can work to build a

committed - although probably inactive and cautious - majority.

• Pressure methods make it increasingly impossible for people not to change their behaviours,

attitudes and responses.

5. IT REALLY MATTERS WHO “DOES” CHANGE MANAGEMENT

If change management is as much about how you do things as what you do, and if the “how” is very

dependent on the person who does it, then you should pay very careful attention to who you employ as

change facilitators, and to the roles that you expect them to fulfil.

Internal versus external resources

The ability and capacity to change effectively and sustainably is a strategic organisational resource –

custodianship of this strategic resource should never be outsourced to external consultants. Having said

that, large change initiatives often place enormous pressure on internal resources and it makes sense to

employ consultants to assist with the effort.

Organisations should take great care to ensure that they understand who – at an individual level – will be

employed as external change facilitators, and that these individuals are suitably qualified and a good “fit”

to the organisation.

Good external change consultants should always do their best to “work themselves out of a job” by

enabling leaders to play the role they should to ensure the successful implementation of a change

initiative and, as far as possible, by working with internal resources to explicitly transfer applicable skills

and knowledge.

The role of leadership

Project teams appointed to deliver change initiatives often take on an inappropriate role – they try to “sell”

the initiative to the organisation and take accountability for business issues, thereby implicitly taking

ownership for the decision to change, as well as the outcomes of the change. A more correct positioning

5 Christo Nel, “The ESP of Change - A structured way to facilitate constructive transformation.”, 1997.


of typical top-down change initiatives in organisations would be that the senior leadership of the

organisation takes explicit ownership of the decision to change and for the outcomes of change, and then

delegates part of the responsibility for the outcomes of change to next level of leadership. The project

team then becomes correctly positioned as a resource appointed to help effect the change.6

The leader’s explicit and visible ownership of the decision to change needs to be real. It is not wise nor a

sustainable strategy to create false energy by launching a project if leadership does not have the energy

nor the appetite for the change.

Leaders should also have a thorough understanding of how the change relates to the bigger

organisational picture:

• the nature of change

• the impact of change

• whether and how the change supports the organisation’s strategic objectives

• the organisation’s ability and capacity to deal with change and whether the organisation is actually

experiencing change “overload”.

They need to understand that much of the success of the change initiative is dependent on them as

leaders, have a good grasp of the relevant change leadership roles they will be expected to fulfil and

understand the initiative timeline and detail approach adequately to know where, when and how they

should participate.

IN CONCLUSION

Change management has the potential for adding great value if done well, or great damage if done

poorly. For this reason, it should be afforded a great deal of attention by all role players in organisational

change, who will be well served by observing the dictum “do no harm to the individual or the

organisation”.

In summary, five fundamental observations regarding effective change management are:

• Do not underestimate what will be required to manage change effectively.

• Enable and support people most at the time when they are required to do things differently.

• Engage simply, honestly and consistently with those affected by the change, allow lots of

opportunity for dialogue and interaction.

• By all means show people the light, but don’t forget to also turn up the heat (but with empathy).

• It matters greatly who facilitates the change – this group should ALWAYS include leadership who

should play a very significant role.

6 Ivan Overton, “Why change goes wrong”, 2007, a publication by ChangeWright Consulting (Pty) Ltd

managing change: five fundamental observations

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