Kris Fannin

People make a change management plan too complicated and costly. Have success in the five stages of change for both personal and organizational strategy. I am about to make a ridiculous statement. Ready? Organizations are made up of people. Yes – without people there would be no organization. That is not the ridiculous part, however. Intelivate developed a corporate strategy promotion campaign to simplify a complex change. The introduction gives a light, but exciting feeling. When organizations plan, budget and execute a change management plan, they make it too complicated and more times than not do it wrong. Why? Organizations approach ‘organizational change’ much differently than to how people approach a change. If you want to invoke change in an organization – guess what? That involves invoking collective change in the PEOPLE that make up that organization. Change Management Plan Simplified. Yes, you are a powerful organizational leader. I hate to say this next part because there are times when this admission makes even me want to cry. You are human. If you need to step away for a bit to compose, I completely get it. I’ll be here waiting for you for as much time as you might need. Organizational Change Happens the Same as Personal Change. As a human, think about how you have successfully managed change with yourself. Now, scale that up and use the same process. Please, stop making it more complicated and mysterious than it needs to be. If you – the organizational leader – focus on building your change management plan using the steps involved in the process of change of people, you have not only simplified the process; you have now dramatically increased the chances of change program success! One unique approach that Intelivate brings to client partnerships is looking at all aspects of an organizational strategy, in the same way, we would approach similar solutions for an individual. The difference? We then scale the solutions accordingly. Even in what we teach in our training programs, we put a personal life spin on everything. This approach is not only incredibly useful, but it also boosts retention, application, and ownership of newly learned concepts. Whether you are influencing in your personal life or a boardroom, the foundational components are the same. See where I am going with all this? To build sustainable success in any organizational strategy, focus on the same steps used to influence a person. They are the same steps you use to see a successful change in your personal life. The difference is simply in scaling and positioning. As I have noted in the past, simple is different than easy; simple can be hard. What I am going to do here is outline what those steps are and considerations for each layer – organizational strategy, leadership, and individual. We are going to look at this in a truly three-dimensional way. Now grab your 3-D glasses and let’s get to this! The first thing we need to get real about is where does the need for change originate. You might not like what I am about to say, but I am confident you will get it. Origination of Change. Let’s get real for a minute about the core of change. When we talk about ‘opportunity,’ what we mean is that something needs to change. There is some lacking need, unfulfilled desire or expectations (market, the board of directors, team, leadership, performance) not being met. As change agents who champion change, we throw the positive spin onto it. That is necessary for particular steps of the change process. We talk about positive change, change opportunity and any other positive spin we can put on it. It is also necessary to be honest with ourselves when we are identifying areas of change, planning change programs and managing change. We need to make something better than it is today even if that is going back in time and fixing something that we broke. Change Compares Present and Past. Please do not confuse business transformation and change. They are different in all aspects, especially approach, resourcing, when to begin and the goals. Transformation is the new buzzword. Many organizations are making costly decisions to label a change management plan as transformation. The need to change is identified by a constant evaluation of the present to the past. Think about that for just a minute. When you have decided to make a change, you are evaluating current state to the past, and that process goes back and forth until making a determination that something must change. Even during the execution of a change management plan, there is a constant evaluation of past and present to gauge progress and to measure completion and the ultimate success. From an organizational strategy perspective, that measure of success is ROI – did the totality of the change management investment indirectly or directly drive revenue. For an individual, change initiative success is still ROI but likely more intangible albeit should still be measurable. There are five critical stages of a change management plan. Let’s dive into those. Five Stages of Change for Your Plan. At Intelivate, we regularly speak of mindset and approach/result, and it is something we use in daily operations as well as with clients. Everything starts with a thought, attitude or overall mindset and eventually results in some behavior – even if that behavior is inaction. Intelivate Stages of Change Model I will break down these five stages of change in the same way but look at mindset and approach at the three layers we discussed: Organizational Strategy Leadership Strategy Individual Strategy Change Management Plan Stage 1: Assessment Stages of Change Model: Assessment Assessment is one of the hardest stages of change. It requires a forced look in the mirror (by you, the market, shareholders, your leader). The assessment stage of a change management plan is looking to your past versus your present and determining whether you want to repeat history or change course. Assessment is also one of the most critical stages of change as it is either skipped (organizations, leaders, and individuals do not think to do it often) or the assessment is done incorrectly or is so overwhelming that change does not move forward. This is why it is always best to get an objective evaluation. Think of it like going to the doctor and you may want multiple opinions before you move other stages of change in your plan. Determine the Problem. When I first moved to my current neighborhood, I met my neighbors across the street. Both of them are brilliant surgeons, which made me more confused as the conversation continued around their frustration with cracks in the sidewalk. They had fixed the sidewalk many times, and the association was being of no help. As they stared at the cracks with disbelief that they had returned, I chuckled and told them to keep a constant supply of cement. They looked up and gave me a rather angry, disgusted look. In actuality, they were giving me the middle finger with their stares. I merely looked up. They looked up and then back at me with the most confused look. I pointed up. They looked back at me like I was losing my mind. “The oak tree,” I said. “The oak tree was put too close to the sidewalk. Of course you are patching cracks regularly. Unless the oak tree moves, the cracks will keep coming back.” They looked at me like I had invented the vaccine for Polio. At that point, I gave them the most confused look and wondered how they obtained the reputation of brilliant surgeons. They were in it too closely to only stop, look up and realize it was the tree and no matter how carefully they laid the cement, the cracks would return. They needed a little perspective to see what was entirely obvious to someone new to the situation. Identify the cause. Don’t invest in change initiatives that are relieving symptoms of the core root causes. Guess what? Nothing will get solved, the symptoms and issues will come back while all of the underlying cause(s) have become more prominent and impactful. I’ve seen this time and time again – a rushed, reactionary plan to merely relieve the symptoms of a business challenge that further mask the cause. As the oak tree becomes taller, wider and stronger, the cracks are going to become more numerous, larger and more extensive. (Although I know you got this, I used roots of an oak tree to explain root cause. Get it? Good. Let’s move on.) Avoid Breaking More Things. In this stage of your change management plan, you are assessing the impact of the possible actions to improve something that needs to be better. Make sure you don’t break things along the way that are working. In your assessment, it is critical that you account for those people, processes, and technology that are working and should be left untouched. These items must receive minimal impact in your overall mitigation and change management plan. You do NOT want to be so myopic in your change initiative that you fix what is in the plan but break ten other things that are operationally perfect. I know you will be shocked to learn this, but we have seen it countless times, and it is one of the main reasons we are asked to partner with an organization. Let’s go through each layer for the Change Management Plan Stage 1: Assessment. Organizational Strategy. Mindset: “We should change.” Behaviors: Conduct comparisons of the major performance indicators to look for trends, holding all other variables constant, including market conditions. Determine if the focus point is people, process, technology. Develop, distribute and analyze targeted feedback at key organizational strategy components of the suspected need to change. Get advice or outside perspective from an Intelivate type resource – even if it’s a colleague or friend from outside of what you are in right now. Have a clear definition of what you are analyzing and expecting to prove or refute. Resist being reactionary. Make sure it is properly prioritized with other planned...

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Kris Fannin

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