Are you Holding up Change?

There are a lot of things in an organization that can hold up the change process.  The first and most important is commitment.  If you are not committed 100% to doing everything within the power of your organization to planning and executing changes, don’t do it.  Going into the process without that level of commitment will frustrate you, your stakeholders and make changing in the future much more difficult.

 It is more than acceptable to go into the change process without knowing anything.  I little fear and a little apprehension are good things and will actually help you along the way.  If you are too afraid to move forward, don’t.  While a little fear is natural and can serve to protect your organization, too much will make you tentative and incapable of being adaptive or agile within the process. 

 

Objectivity is the key to success.  Some might call it pragmatism, but either way, having an open mind and looking at things in a sensible and realistic manner will keep the process flowing and keep emotion out of it.  Emotion is a great tool when celebrating victories or acting as a cheerleader for a process, but no matter how you are attached to an organization or the outcome of a change plan, infusing emotion into your decision making or management process will usually result in bad decisions and bad management.

 

The beauty of a well-crafted and executed change plan is in its simplicity.  While the process seems complex, it follows a rational thought process.  Complex problems only seem complex until a solution is found.  Breaking things down to their most simple form not only allows a wider understanding of the solution, but gives an organization a wider range of resources to use for the execution of a change plan.  If you run up against a difficult problem to solve, break it down into smaller pieces and then eat one at a time.

 

Pervasive actions and thought processes that retard or derail the progress of organizational change:

 

1.     Time – Thinking you don’t have the time to do it.

We make time to do the things we feel are important and try to find time to do those things we don’t.  If you can’t make time to plan or execute your changes, you are not placing the amount of importance on them that needs to be there.  The other time issue is the difference between doing work and doing your job.  If you are spending more time doing work than you are doing your job, you need to focus on ways to switch that around.

2.     Ego – You don’t think you need it or think you have all of the answers.

There is a considerable difference between being confident and having an ego.  Confidence is the ability to make a decision with the humility to realize when someone else has a better idea.  Ego is about thinking you do or should have the answers based on your role or title.   Ego is a business killer.  Leadership ego kills morale and discredits the organization and its leaders.  Ego is also not trusting the people your surround yourself with to do the job you hired them to do.

3.     Unrealistic Expectations – Setting goals and expectations that aren’t planned within the process, or being unwavering when the process pushes expectations in a different direction.

Determination of goals can be a precursor to a change plan, or can be discovered during its development.  Either way, the plan should push the goals and goals should be adjusted based on what you determine as realistic within the scope of the plan.  Expectations for results should be based in possibility not estimation.   Attainment of a goal is based on modifying the behaviors that affect the

4.     Misplaced Loyalty – Thinking it is more important to make your employees happy than to make needed changes.  You can have both, but you have to do it the right way.

While it is important to take people’s feelings and emotions into consideration when planning or implementing a change plan, having that as the sole reason to stall execution or excuse someone from completing a required task will make your execution inconsistent.  Loyalty in an organization needs to be to the whole and not to the part.  Worrying about not doing the right thing for your business because it might upset one of its parts is another example of ego-centric leadership (see #2).

5.     Mistrust – Thinking that you have people who will fight the changes or aren’t capable of making them.

If you hired employees that you think are incapable of changing, that is much more your problem than theirs.  Much of the mistrust that happens in an organization comes from an ego-centric leadership (See #2).  People will follow a plan they understand and are prepared for.  The duty of an organization is to provide support to their employees prior to, during and after any change plan is implemented.  More often than not, poor employees or poor employee morale is due to lack of support and understanding much more than to the quality of the person.

6.     Inconsistent Execution – Sometimes you hold people accountable, sometimes you don’t.

There is no room for hierarchy in the execution of a change plan.  Yes, there needs to be people to lead the process, but the rules have to apply to everyone from the top down.  If you allow people to circumvent or ignore the process based on their role or title, you either have too rigid of a process, or a bad management philosophy.  Execution must be consistent to work.  Without consistency, you can’t determine the difference between a mistake and an issue.  This takes away any intended agility within the process.

7.     Structural Issues – Not having something in place to keep the process moving and allowing for adaptive changes to take place within the timeline and flow of the changes.

No plan should be set in stone.  That being said, if you don’t have a structure in place to ensure the process continues to move, or allows it to adapt, you will spend a lot more of your time planning than doing, and results don’t come from a plan, they come from its execution.  Ensure that you have ways to inspect your expectations through a consistent management process. Moving ahead with a change plan before you have the internal structural integrity to support it will magnify its lack and cause undue stress on the process and the people involved in it.

8.     Lack of Autonomy – Expecting people to do their job without having the ability to make necessary decisions to get it done correctly.

An effective organization gives it employees the information they need to make decisions, the authority they need to follow through with those decisions and the autonomy to correct any complications arising from them.  Expecting employees to perform their job duties or execute a plan without all three of them will be an exercise in futility.  Not every employee needs full autonomy, but once the parameters are set, they need to be allowed to work within them.

9.     Obstacle Paralysis – Giving up, giving in or not moving forward when obstacles present themselves.

 

No plan is perfect in either its inception or execution.  As soon as begin its implementation, you will encounter obstacles.  No matter their size or scope, they can stall or stop the change process.  How you react to them will determine their net effect on the results and the process in general.  Thinking that because you hit an obstacle means your plan is flawed is not the right way to look at it.  Thinking that your people aren’t capable because mistakes happen is also a sure way to derail your plan.

 

10.            Reactive Hierarchy – When your people, especially managers spend more time working than doing their job.

People are led though changes, not managed around it.  If your culture is one where your managers react to problems when they occur instead of foreseeing potential problems, you will have a difficult time with any change process.  The intent of a change plan, and its underlying ability to be nimble is to curb the necessity to react to obstacles.  Mistakes need to be coached around and issues resolved.  Treating every issue like the world is ending is a reactive and detrimental course that should not be traveled.