Managing change is ‘hard work’ and fraught with risk of failure. It requires a lot of patience, continuous repetition of key concepts, enthusiasm, understanding, empathy and often the development of a ‘thick skin’. People promoting, leading and enabling change are often faced with passive resistance to change such as silence, withdrawal, absenteeism, lethargy, inactivity, etc. and even ‘open’ resistance such as hostility, aggression, conflict, paranoia, negativity, criticism and sabotage.

So Why Do It?

Successfully managing change can also be incredibly satisfying. Individuals and organisations often seek to implement changes in order to realise some intended individual or business benefits. Often those intended benefits are difficult to express or are in some way unpalatable to the intended audience (eg We want to decrease costs, reduce staff numbers, increase productivity or efficiency, etc).
Managing change using tried and tested concepts and techniques will avoid (or at least minimise) the impact of passive and open resistance to change. Applying good change management techniques in a project environment can:

• manage peoples’ expectations about the change – including their perceived losses and gains from the implemented change;
• mobilise and motivate people to accept the change and get on with it;
• maintain participation and support of all interested parties;
• speed the implementation of change and the realisation of the intended benefits;
• reduce the less-productive time (downtime) associated with doing things a new way, and help people to more quickly become familiar, comfortable and even expert at doing things the new way; and
• institutionalise the changes, so individuals (and the organisation) are not tempted to revert to ‘old’ practices.

How Do You Do It?

We have implemented change programs in many industries, in organisations large and small and with a huge variety of organisational cultures and have found that even the most planned and meticulously executed change management attempts will risk failure without the mandatory, high levels of visible executive sponsorship, individual understanding and belief in the need for the change and concrete benefits for the individuals in the organisation.
Over the years, we have tried various techniques to manage change, and have found that Kotter’s 8 Steps to Managing Change are very useful. We have added our experiences to Kotter’s method.
Using a recipe analogy, the ingredients for a successful implementation of sustained organisational change are quite simple, and should be checked regularly for their effectiveness in supporting the change process:

1. Increase the urgency for the change and create dissatisfaction for the status quo. Show individuals the need for the change (ie why the change is necessary) and identify and communicate the corporate and individual benefits of the change. This step has been further explored in this post.
2. Build the team to guide the implementation and decision-making related to the change project. Members of the guiding team should balance leadership with management skills, should be the ‘right people’ in terms of peer group credibility and trust, and who have (or can make) time available to focus on effective teamwork. This has been further explored in this post.
3. Define and communicate the vision for the change. The vision should be bold, compelling, understood and easily shared with the guiding team and the individuals in their work environment. The vision should express clearly what the new, changed organisation will look like and feel like to the individuals.
4. Communicate (even over-communicate!). Tell people affected as much as you can, as early as you can. Respond to concerns raised, they can at least be acknowledged, if not fully answered. Honour all commitments to communicate. Remember that you will be judged by your actual communications (presentations, e-mails, newsletters, posters, meetings, etc) not by your best intentions to communicate!
5. Empower action. Help people in the changing work environment to succeed in the new world. Communicate what they should stop doing, and what they should start doing differently. ‘Empower’ them by removing the obstacles (eg too much work, not enough time, impossibly high targets, etc). Provide them with the mandate for action, the resources, the time, etc. Coach and support the people empowered to act on behalf of the guiding team, and visibly reward them for demonstrating changing behaviours aligned to the intended business outcomes of the change.
6. Create momentum and support for the changes by implementing Quick Wins. Be aware however, that not all Quick Wins are equal: true quick wins should be implemented quickly in the context of the overall project timeline, should be communicated effectively to the areas most affected, and must be meaningful and unambiguous. If you find yourself arguing about a Quick Win, its often perceived as a loss…
7. Turn your back for a second, and groups of individuals usually prefer to abandon the changes and go back to the ‘old way’. The second-to-last step in the change process is to stop the back-sliding: Don’t Let Up. This step involves actions to maintain the urgency for the changes and can go on for weeks and months.
8. The eighth step in the change process is to make sure the changes stick. This involves all the actions required until you hear people saying about the changes you have been seeking to implement “… but this is how we’ve always done it…”. Old terminology and phrases are a thing of the past, documentation and culture has changed to support the changes, and new employees are indoctrinated in ‘the new way’.

Effective communication is the most important tool in a consultant’s repertoire.

Often brought into a project or team environment to facilitate constructive conversations, the consultant is always required to choose their words carefully.

For in any meeting or workshop or presentation, there are moments when differing factions hover over common ground.

Equally, opposing viewpoints, when expressed, can create damaging rifts and it is often the role of the consultant to bridge these gaps and cement the common ground while it exists!

Every consultant knows that a careless phrase can damage sensitive negotiations. In our experience, four phrases that should never crop up in consultative conversations are:

1. “Look” / “Listen”

Directing people in this off-hand way is becoming more and more common. Regularly used by politicians to answer unpleasant questions from journalists, these sentence-starters are creeping into everyday discussions.

The words “look” and “listen”, often chosen to emphasise a viewpoint, are aggressive turns of phrase and can be viewed by your audience as abrupt and commanding.

By beginning a sentence in this manner, the consultant seems to be saying: You’re not hearing me or You need to look at things the way I do.

Both inferences are far from engaging and can alienate your audience well before you have made your point.

2. “The thing is…”

This is what we call conversation clutter.

It is another term for “patter” or “verbal fillers”, where the person who has the limelight fills up the spaces in their conversation with meaningless words.

Have you ever been involved in a conversation that the other person insists on controlling with long pauses, drawn-out words or big physical gestures? They are likely to also be guilty of conversation clutter.

The reality is that phrases like “If you ask me…” or “When you stop for a moment and think about it…” are not only largely meaningless, but are also designed to give the audience the impression that the speaker already has all of the answers.

Not a good way to encourage people to contribute to a conversation!

3. “We don’t have time for this…”

The carpark is a consulting technique used when many, potentially distracting issues arise in a consultative environment. While these issues are often important, they may be either out of scope of the current discussion or impossible to resolve effectively in the given timeframe.

As a result, the consultant need to “park” these issues without devaluing them and often writes them on an adjacent white-board to keep them in sight, but out of scope.

This is a far more effective way of managing the conversation than throwing your hands into the air and declaring, “We don’t have time for this!”

Just remember that by telling your audience you will address an issue at a later date, you must honour your commitment or risk losing their trust in both you and the process.

4. “Obviously!” “Surely!”

Like the first phrase, this one is often lobbed into a conversation like a grenade.

The speaker not only suggests that they have all of the answers, but in a single word can ridicule all contrasting opinions.

When dealing with other people, nothing is obvious or certain.

If the consultant wants to be clear about a particular point, it is far better that they phrase it in a less aggressive manner, acknowledging that the general consensus might be different from individual opinions.

In using the words “I think” or “I believe” you open the floor to other ideas, rather than suggesting that only the dim-witted or obstinate would dare to disagree with you!