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Change Management: Whose Job Is It Anyway?

Culture Change, Organizational ChangeComments Off

thats_not_my_jobIn a recent HRB article, author Ron Ashkenas rightly points out that most of change management efforts fail because it is a task often relegated to HR or an outside consultant. He and most of those who replied to his article make the common sense assertion that change management efforts should be the purview of the leader/manager. If we surveyed a hundred managers, the majority would probably agree that it is their job to manage change.

Then why do managers often look to HR or consultants to take on the role  of change managers? Based on observations in client organizations, I offer some ideas:

Why Culture Matters: Three Things Any Leader Can Do About It

Culture Change, Leadership, Mindsets & Behavior, Organizational Change3 Comments

In an interesting article by the Washington Post (What you can learn from Southwest Airlines’ culture) Micah Solomon addresses lessons about organizational culture and why culture matters. The article illustrates these lessons using Southwest Airlines as an example. To summarize, culture matters because…

  • Culture creates a consistently positive customer experience
  • The impact of culture is amplified by social media
  • A strong culture helps organizations manage constant change

Leadership and Change: Blame, Fallacy, and Culture Change

Culture Change, Leadership, Organizational ChangeComments Off

A recent article (A Call for Leadership) in the Harvard Nieman Journalism Lab points to leaders as the chief reason that corporate culture does not change. The article cites research and examples to make the case for why executives are to blame for failure to change corporate culture in news organizations. But, this is true of probably any organization!

The typical view of most executives in organizations is that the masses will ‘resist’ change and that the masses is where the problem is. That is a fallacy. As the article points out and in my experience, it is leadership where the blame lies. Why? Because 1) often the change leaders are not truly willing to change, and 2) it is at the mid-management layer where the change most often loses steam (not the masses). Not surprisingly, the most common reason for mid-level leaders not supporting the change is top level leaders not being willing to change!

How to Sustain Change & Improvement

Acceptance, Culture Change, Resistance, Sustaining ChangeComments Off

This is the fourth post in the series “5 Reasons Why a Change Management Strategy Matters“

A client once implemented a new operating and management philosophy across the entire organization. A team of dedicated experts spent months implementing the change, training the people, and basically refurbishing the entire facility. The results were impressive. At least initially. A few months after this effort, operational performance slid back almost to previous levels. This is not a unique story!

Why does the change not last? Partly for the same reason that a father brings his wayward son back to counseling after a transformational improvement at an Anazasi camp, a wilderness survival camp for at-risk youth. The boy had come back transformed but the improvement didn’t last. Why? Because he came back to the same environment, the same friends, and the same family relationships. He had changed but the system had not.

Five Factors of Mindset & Behavior Change

Change Strategies, Culture Change, Mindsets & Behavior, Organizational Change2 Comments

Mindsets & Behaviors

This is the third post in the series “5 Reasons Why a Change Management Strategy Matters“

Meaningful and sustainable organizational change requires a fundamental shift in the way people see things and feel about them which leads to new behavior. The new behavior must be based on individual conviction and choice, not fear or compliance.

Some key factors of behavior change include:

The Soft Stuff is Really the Hard Stuff! Really!!

Change Strategies, Culture Change, Employee Involvement, Organizational Change, Resistance, StakeholderComments Off

This is the second post of the series “5 Reasons Why a Change Management Strategy Matters“

Have you ever tried pushing noodles with chopsticks? I’ve heard organizational change described as just that, pushing noodles with chopsticks…frustrating! Why? Because it’s hard!

To illustrate…I had three separate conversations recently with colleagues who described this phenomenon. In one case, the company wants more collaboration among highly skilled and highly paid professionals who are not used to working like this, and are not welcoming the change. In another case, the board of directors is not seeing what’s crystal clear to the chairman, and therefore, not going in the direction the chairman believes they should go. In yet another case, the business is in need of some clearly needed and logical improvements, but the politics involved have stalled any progress forward. In every case, they are confronting the same ‘soft’ issues. All workable stuff, all soft stuff. All hard to deal with.

Lessons From Long-Distance Running: Support Mechanisms

Change Strategies, Culture Change, Mindsets & Behavior, Organizational Change, Sustaining ChangeComments Off

This is part of the series “Lessons from Change Management Strategies and Long Distance Running.”
How would you like to run in those rubber boots? Of course it is ridiculous! What is worse, it could be dangerous. You have to use the right shoes; you have to have the right gear. I train in a pair of Nike Free (right), great shoes!

Shoes do make a difference!

Other support mechanisms for runners can include a schedule for regular practice, a training program to systematically increase endurance and speed, access to a gym with the right equipment, diet and supplements, and a running group. Likewise, organizational change requires support mechanisms to enable the implementation of the change and to assimilate it into organizational culture. The first step is to clearly define the desired behavior that the change requires, then align the support mechanisms or systems to reinforce the change.

The Role of the Six Sigma Black Belt Part VI: The Change Agent

Change Strategies, Culture Change, Mindsets & Behavior, Organizational Change, ResistanceComments Off

This is part of the series The Role of the Six Sigma Black Belt. The concepts and ideas presented also apply to other improvement professionals and leaders implementing improvements in an organization.

The Change Agent Role

Once I was working with a plant manager in Latin America to facilitate an all day session to roll out a new operating plan from the plant. We had planned a very interactive day to ensure the start to this transition would be effective. When I got there I found out that the two ‘big guns’ from corporate who were architects of the plan were in town and prepared to take over the meeting to present the business case and laying out the plan, the new operating goals, the financials, and the new roles and responsibilities, all in good Six Sigma lingo. The HR manager was there with stacks of paper containing the new job descriptions. It was obviously too late for me to change course so I sat in the audience as an observer.

The Role of the Six Sigma Black Belt

Culture Change, Employee Involvement, Lean Six Sigma, Operational Excellence, Organizational ChangeComments Off

The title of this series refers to the Six Sigma Black Belt, but the concepts and ideas expressed here apply equally to any improvement professional and leader trying to implement improvements in an organization.

Part I: The Question

Early in my career I had the chance to become trained and certified as a Six Sigma Black Belt (a trained practitioner of process and quantitative tools to improve process performance by practically eliminating errors and variation in a process). The company had fully embraced Six Sigma and selected a number of individuals to participate in a two-year rotation program to become certified Black Belts.

Black Belts were a “selected” group of experts “deployed” to save the company (ok, that’s a bit dramatic). Needless to say, the whole movement was not without controversy and though the company did achieve good success there were lessons to be learned. 

The Effects of Organizational Change on Psychological Stress and Job Performance

Agility, Culture Change, Employee Engagement, Organizational Change, Resistance15 Comments

Last year (March 2008) the Journal of International Business & Economicspublished a study by Phapruke Ussahawanitchakit and Chaiyot Sumritsakun on the effect of Organizational Change (OC) on employees’ stress and performance. Among other findings, they reported:

  1. OC results in higher psychological stress (employees feeling psychologically and emotionally drained due to pressure during the organizational change).
  2. OC leads to lower job performance due to stress.
  3. Moreover, neither “organizational communication and support moderate the relationships” between organizational change, psychological stress, and job performance.
The implications are significant for a number of reasons.
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