Donna FitzgeraldI was just doing some research on change management and I had another light bulb moment. The article I was reading said you needed to make a business case for change, and my immediate gut reaction was “on what planet? Nobody ever makes a change for the sake of change.” In my experience most organizations, change is a by-product of acquiring something else that is deemed to be valuable. Let me try and be more specific – if there’s a bright idea by some process wonk that by changing action X, the process can be improved and nobody else thinks the process was broken – it’s a very BAD IDEA. If the company needs to improve their logistics process because their lunch is getting eaten by the competition and everyone in the company knows it; making a process change is a very GOOD IDEA.
When I was much less experienced than I am now (reader younger) I routinely came up with good ideas of how we could improve the way we did things. I had two ways of handling these good ideas. In some cases I’d go walk around and talk to the people in the chain and say “are you on board with this if I implement it?” If they said yes, I never asked permission I just did it. These tended to work out quite well. The problem was always with my big ideas that involved spending money or getting other business units to change where I didn’t have a personal network. Generally I’d have to go to management and 99% of the time they’d say “Good idea, but not now” and sent me back to my office. Most staff professionals get very angry and very frustrated when their ideas get shot down but I found it left me more curious than anything else. I knew they had a reason for making the judgment they did – I just didn’t understand it – hence the light bulb moment.
What I now understand is that contrary to most literature, incremental change imposed by somebody with a bright idea is VERY EXPENSIVE and largely unnecessary. Joe Proctor, a former CIO of Intel, gave me the best advice on the subject I’ve ever received. His question was “who else thinks this is a problem worth solving right now?” Sometimes Joe and I didn’t see eye to eye but that question was profoundly brilliant and is 90% of the threshold condition for making any change (the other 10% is what I call the burning building test — but that’s a subject for another blog).
So a proposal that does not have advocacy from a broad range of people is simply too expensive to do because it creates unnecessary change AND change has a price. (see my blog The Unfamiliarity Factor is Critically Important in Change Management). The more I think about this the more I understand why I’ve looked at some of the “level 4 continuous improvement” literature and shuttered in horror (and NO the Gartner maturity model for PPM does not have a continuous improvement level). I believe in continuous improvement but it absolutely has to be from the ground up. If it’s top down it needs to be so clear cut as to why it should be adopted that people are literally beating on management to let them do it.
There’s an old book call Up the Organization by Robert Townsend that had another piece of advice that I immediately knew was absolute wisdom the moment I read it. Townsend’s contented that it was essential to never introduce a small change unless people were so busy and so stressed they would accept the change with open arms because it was going to help them (he was talking about adding staff but the advice is extendable).
I hope by sharing my insight that I can possibly help reduce the frustration I know many of you feeel about the fact that your organization is refusing to follow your lead and get on the formal project management process bandwagon. After all top management asked you to make the change and then they (senior management) refused to force people to accept it, leaving you feeling like you are banging your head against a stone wall. But feeling frustrated isn’t worth your time. The answer to the problem is actually very simple if you can’t sell it bottom-up and there’s no burning building to drive adoption top down — go back to the drawing board and rethink what you are doing.
Thoughts? comments? Violently disagree???
Category: Organizational Development PMO Tags: Change Management
6 responses so far ↓
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2 Mel Clark July 28, 2010 at 4:15 pm
This is so true- and works on every level – any scale – any organization. I volunteer on the board for my kids’ swim league. I recently changed the league schedule, before the board meeting, but quietly asking the most vocal coaches (those with the bigger teams) if my idea would work for their team. Then, by the time we got to the board meeting to approve the schedule- everybody was already on board and it didn’t even feel like a change at that point, just the logical way to proceed.
3 Mel Clark July 28, 2010 at 4:15 pm
This is so true- and works on every level – any scale – any organization. I volunteer on the board for my kids’ swim league. I recently changed the league schedule, before the board meeting, by quietly asking the most vocal coaches (those with the bigger teams) if my idea would work for their team. Then, by the time we got to the board meeting to approve the schedule- everybody was already on board and it didn’t even feel like a change at that point, just the logical way to proceed.
4 Donna Fitzgerald July 28, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Mel,
I love your comment, “just a logical way to proceed”. That’s exactly what I was talking about. When we do it right it’s fairly effortless. I think part of the trick is respecting conservation of energy. People have only so much energy to give to work. With that in mind we need to ask them to spend their energy wisely and only make the changes that people feel have a sufficiently high payback.
There are exceptions, but most of those are the result of “big change” or engrained cultural disfunctionalities (like being unionized). For the routine stuff I still believe that people are happy to change if it makes sense.
Thanks for the comments
5 Anthony Bradley July 30, 2010 at 10:31 am
I may agree but I’m not sure. It seems like your approach can be a detriment to significant change that can mean the difference between a great and growing company v. a slowly declining “if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it” mentality. Everything changes continuously and business must also change continuously. I once had a CEO who said, “This business has not changed in 25 years and won’t change for another 25.” This sounds like something every CEO says before they get their lunch eaten. That is probably what the CEO of Barnum&Baily said just before Cirque du Soleil redefined the circus. Big missed opportunity. But Barnum wasn’t broken.
What about “Blue Ocean” change. Generally Blue Ocean change is not recognized by many in an organization. I don’t beleive bright ideas should be somewhat dismissed because everyone doesn’t agree there is a problem. Change is threatening and many may kick back simply because 1. it wasn’t their idea, 2. it threatens their power base, 3. it conflicts with their personal agenda, 4. they just don’t like the person with the idea.
Change for the sake of change is bad, no doubt. Change to fix a widely recognized problem is good, no doubt. But change to move the business forward and gain competitive advantage when most don’t recognize a problem can be the most powerful change of all. IMO, if leadership doesn’t recognize this then the company will never really be great.
I’m hoping this is the 10% to which you refer. If it is, then we agree. If it isn’t, then we agree only in part.
6 Donna Fitzgerald July 30, 2010 at 11:10 am
Anthony,
Great comment. In fact it’s so good that I’m going to need another blog entry to do it justice. I will point out that I was making the case that CHANGE should be attached to something else that has a BUSINESS VALUE. So a disruptive innovation has a business value (often the survival of the company). This innovation will generally change processes and skills and possibly even core capabilities (which I discuss in my reserach on the EPMO). Clayton Christensen Innovator’s Dilemma ofers some insight into handling this level of change. One of the issues I’m focusing on right now is how to handle the small stuff that keeps a firm in fighting trim. I am advocating that the small stuff is best done bottom-up and that bottom-up is defined as more than just me (in my former role of finance) saying we should do it. The trick is to get support for the small stuff because then it is more clearly worth paying the cost in terms of mental energy (see my previous blog referenced above)
So no disagreement on the big stuff. I’ve just got my magnifying glass focused on how to make “change operations” work right now.