3×3 Techniques for Change Management

If you want to change the way your team works with customers, get your money’s worth from a new training program, or introduce a new initiative, you will need to engage in change management. While I recommend John Kotter’s Leading Change as a reference book on the topic. Here’s my alternative, matrixed checklist.

Theme 1: Understand the context

  • What projects have succeeded/failed before (related or unrelated to your initiative)? If you are pushing for a new knowledge management initiative when two others have failed previously, say, determining what went wrong in the previous attempts is a no-brainer. But also find out why the latest project, on an apparently unrelated track of  defining promotion criteria, was so successful. You may be able to emulate some of the successful choices it made.
  • Who has power (on paper or not)? Let’s say you want to change the way you onboard new customers. The CSMs have a lot of power implementing the changes–but buy-in from the sales team is likely required, too. The larger the initiative, the more likely you will have to take into account outside parties.
  • What else is going on? Focusing on a handful of projects yields much better results than a scattershot approach, especially in the support world where so much of team members time is spoken for to take care of customers, no matter what else might be in flight.

Theme 2: Sweat the planning

  • Do a pilot. It’s absolutely possible to roll out a large project in a large organization in one fell swoop, successfully. But a pilot can help you adjust the details with a more modest initial investment and at a lower risk than a full-fledged initiative–and a successful pilot naturally creates converts who will help generate wider adoption.
  • Sweat the planning. Many failed initiatives are simply badly conceived, badly executed, and badly measured. Gather a team of experts to workshop the project and insist that they carefully examine negative scenarios alongside the expected ones. Anticipating issues, pushbacks, and delays makes for a more robust solution.
  • Don’t rush too much. Rushed projects may ruffle feathers simply because team members cannot adapt at speed, even if they would support a more measured change.  And rushing through changes that are not fully supported by the tools can also create frustration by adding manual steps, even if it’s for a short time.

Theme 3: Build support

  • Start with the thought leaders. Informal leaders are essential to success, and they often are not on the list of “official” leaders. Seek out the charismatic leaders and give them a role early on. For instance, if you are piloting a new soft skills training program, get them in the first wave of workshops. They will spread the word.
  • Ignore grouches. Don’t waste your time trying to convince the pessimists that the initiative will work. Instead, ask them to give you 10 reasons why it will not and use the list to create an array of counter-measures. They may be grouchy, but they may have great ideas.
  • Leverage industry experts. Outside experts can give credibility to your ideas while helping you avoid the typical pitfalls for similar initiatives. They can be your allies both to seek funding and to facilitate consensus. (Ask me how I know!)

 

What change management techniques have worked for you in the past? Please share.