How to Deliver Successful Change Management (Part 3)

Read parts 1 and 2 of this six part series here:

How to Deliver Successful Change Management (Part 1)

How to Deliver Successful Change Management (Part 2)

Many people who haven’t been involved in implementing change initiatives or transformations often have an over optimistic view on how quickly and easily change can be adopted. As a change management speaker and advisor I have to repeatedly warn people that’s not the reality. So it’s now worth focusing on some real world factors which impact implementation before considering the implementation itself. These will help get things going in the right direction and provide a useful template of key steps and areas to watch.

Making it happen – the reality

Adopter groups

When change and transformation occurs we respond as human beings, combining a rational analysis of whether it makes sense with an emotional assessment of whether we like it. Clearly different people will take different views on this and so the response to change will vary between different groups and over time.

One simple practical way of thinking about it is that you will have three groups to deal with.

1. Early adopters – who think it’s a brilliant idea and enthusiastically engage.
2. The undecided  – who aren’t sure and want to see what happens. Within this group there will be a mix of those who are verging on the positive and those who may be more negative. But all of them are withholding judgement to see what happens and the responses of their peers.

Change resisters – these individuals have decided, for whatever reason, that they don’t like the idea of the change. Within this group will be some who can be moved to the more positive as they see their colleagues starting to implement the change and those who will not take a positive view.

These groups are not fixed. They are dynamic and they will represent certain percentages of those involved in the change at the start of implementation but as the implementation moves forward people will tend to move between groups.

We’ve all seen this over our careers where, if a change or transformation is implemented well and the “early adopters” are enthusiastic, then the “undecided” will tend to move towards wanting to implement and this will build up momentum for the change. This may then eventually encourage even some change “resisters” to engage and implement.

However if the change is not well positioned and implemented it is likely that the “undecided” will start to become more negative and, overtime, even the “early adopters” who were positive will start to become more negative as implementation slows.

Here is an average distribution of the 3 groups at the start of a change process.

Image from chrisroebuck.live

Note that the better your employee engagement the more likely you will be to have a larger “early adopter” and “positive leaning undecided”.That’s why it is so important within the planning of the change to engage people before implementation so that their perspective of what is going to happen is positive rather than negative.

So rather than the population breakdown that is normally assumed to exist for change as above you may be in a much more advantageous position as per below:

Image from chrisroebuck.live

This doubling of early adopters significantly increases the chances of success. So its worth trying to do an assessment of your adopter groups in key areas by using any feedback you receive during planning or feedback and progress during implementation. When I am speaking as a change management speaker or advisor I often say that to deliver successful change leaders must have the adopter curve in their mind all the time – moving it is the secret to success.  

^{Read more: How to Deliver Successful Change Management (Part 2)}

Realistic Timelines

It’s probably clear from the adopter groups that change inherently takes time. And, as mentioned, one of the problems that I have frequently seen is that people are over optimistic about how quickly change can be implemented. Successful organisational change management is likely to more often need significant changes rather than minor changes to organisational structure or the organisations culture. That takes time.  

The adopter groups vary at every level of the organisation so you are not dealing with one adopter group you are dealing with numerous different levels, in different parts of the organisation all with different % of adoption and dynamics. For example higher up the organisation the adopter groups tend to have a higher % of early adopters than further down.

When change is initiated it inherently cascades from the top down even if people have been involved at all levels within the planning. That means that as the change cascades it has to move through these adopter groups, even if it’s the early adopters alone, from one level to another down to the frontline.

In a small single site organisation focused on producing one product or service then change may not take too long.

The larger, more complex, and more geographically spread your organisation is the longer change is going to take to move through and be implemented by everyone. Within UBS for example, 60,000 employees, with four different business divisions plus a corporate headquarters spread across the world in different time zones implementing major transformation was something which took several years not month’s, and realistically 4 – 5 years to fully embed culturally.   

That raises a number of issues in terms of ensuring success over such an extended time given changes in leadership and other elements over time which I’ll cover later.

An emotional journey

At the start of the article I said it's vital to remember we are all human and we respond emotionally just as much as we analyse rationally. To some degree those emotional responses are predictable – if we view things as positive we will welcome them and in case of change potentially implement it, but if we view change as negative we will resist. That’s just how our brains are designed to work for our own survival.

This means that during any change or transformation, at all stages, you are likely to experience what appear to be irrational emotional responses, especially if you are one of the people who developed the wonderful plan and others aren’t as inspired by it as you are.

This could be a potential indicator that your planning and engagement process was ineffective. If it was effective you would not see these indicators to any great degree during implementation.

These “emotional” responses are often summarised in the various models of peoples reaction to change and its implementation. The classic journey through change is summarised below. These response stages are typical of changes sprung on people without much preparation.

But you can avoid these by effective engagement, consultation and building trust prior to launch. My experience has been that if people are engaged in the development of the change, aware of whats happening and, in particular, they trust their boss, and if possible senior leaders, then as the diagram below shows this can cut out the negative stages and move people swiftly to a positive decision to implement.

Image from chrisroebuck.live

However, if negative elements do appear you need to quickly engage people to discover what is driving that response and how, through better communication, engagement, or adapting your plan, you can achieve a more positive outcome for those involved. Promoting an open-door policy is a really useful tool which enables issues to be quickly dealt with.

Key points: 

• Adopter groups – plan how to get early adopters maximised and then they inspire the undecided to join them.
• Monitor key adopter groups as you implement if you can.
• Be realistic with time – it will take longer than expected. Build in contingencies if you need to have a clearly defined completion date.
• Avoid the negative responses to change with trust and engagement prior to implementation
• Never forget successful change is about emotion and much as a good plan.

Read parts 4 to 6 of this six part series here:

How to Deliver Successful Change Management (Part 4)

How to Deliver Successful Change Management (Part 5)

How to Deliver Successful Change Management (Part 6)

This was first republished on chrisroebuck.live.