Five Necessary Actions for Organizational Change
August 28th, 2006 by HalLast week I wrote Don't CRM Lean into Your Organization mentioning the difficulty companies have adopting organizational change. Adopting new behaviors on projects and in organizations is one of the toughest actions we take as leader-managers. This is especially true when it involves switching paradigms. At Lean Project Consulting we use a change approach1 based on five actions. The first thing to know is these are necessary but often not sufficient conditions. If you skip one of these actions you are assured of failure in the long-term. However, performing all five actions doesn't guarantee success. Very often a situation demands additional actions to ensure success, e.g., changes to systems or acquisition of new skills. The outline that follows can serve as a point of departure for planning your changes. Do the planning in a group and be open to multiple approaches rather than one "right" answer.
- Be clear why change is necessary in terms that make sense to the individuals:
State clear consequences for continuing with the current state.
Make assessments of the value for changing. - Declare an initial set of standards for measuring performance and get agreement that people will set out to perform to those standards. Begin a practice of checking.
Be public with your standard-setting.
Create alignment with the group that they will hold themselves to the new standards.
People are accountable when there is a customer holding them to account.
Good customers show their appreciation for results and efforts. - Show how it is done.
People need to see that it is possible to be successful performing a new (set of) behaviors. Talking about it — merely "Jawboning" — doesn't work.
Put each new person in action while you are introducing them to the new behavior. - Measure, acknowledge, reward new behavior, and be clear on the consequences.
Put yourself in the position to catch people doing it right. Be with them in their work-setting while they are working. This also gives you the opportunity to coach or adjust unsuccessful action.
People need encouragement and redirection while they are learning. Make yourself available for that.
Keep the context of the change – consequences of not changing and the new value available – in the foreground for performers. Remind your team and yourself with regular stories of why this change matters. - Work with them on improving.
This fifth action is the one that cements the change. Often people put up with little dissatisfactions during a change telling themselves that it will get better once they are familiar or competent. The truth is usually the opposite. The annoyances are only magnified by the frequency of action. Commit yourself to continuously improve the changed situation for the benefit of the participants, the customers, and the company. That action telegraphs the importance of the change.
People know what is important to their managers by how they spend their time
Commit yourself to success. Nothing beats a passionate determined individual. Let your passion show to the people you lead in change. Stay engaged with them so they see first-hand that the change is a priority for you, not just them. And be consistent with that involvement.
Remember, people know what is important to their managers by how they spend their time, particularly changes to how they spend their time. Err on the side of spending extra time when you set out to make change.
- This posting was abstracted from Lean Project Consulting's special report: Five Necessary Actions for Organizational Change, by Hal Macomber and Gregory Howell. You can get a complete copy by sending an email to 5-actions-change@leanproject.com. You'll get a link to a 2-page PDF which you are welcome to share with your colleagues. [ ⇑ back ]
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