In their book, “Blue Ocean Strategy,” authors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne offer some advice for successfully introducing change. The advice they offer is in the context changing marketing strategy, but their advice is really valid for any significant change within an organization whether you’re making operational changes, organizational changes, policy changes, or other. The authors talk about four hurdles we must clear to successfully introduce change, and two of those hurdles deal with winning the hearts and minds of your people. Clearly that’s the key because if we can’t win the hearts and minds of our people, how can we depend upon them to implement the changes we need. So we’ll deal with only those two people hurdles here. If you want to find out about the other two hurdles, you’ll have to get the book. For more about getting your people on board with change, please read below.
Don’t manage change. Lead it!
In most organizations, change is difficult because there’s so much inertia to overcome. After all, we’ve always done it this way, we’re good at doing it this way, we’ve been successful doing it this way, so why do we have to change?
Fair question, and if we want to effect change quickly and smoothly, it deserves a compelling answer. And by the way, “Because the boss says so,” is not the sort of compelling answer we’re looking for here.
So the first step in bringing about change is to get a majority of your people, particularly leaders, understanding the need for change and moving toward that change. Here, Kim and Mauborgne advise against using numbers to make the case. They argue that numbers can be manipulated, and therefore, people tend to distrust them. Besides, numbers can make the need for change feel theoretical or abstract. Instead, the authors suggest letting people see and experience the need for change. For instance, if we need to change our manufacturing process, let’s ask people not directly involved in those processes to spend some time on the manufacturing floor, witnessing (maybe even participating in) the problems we’re trying to address.
OK, we’ve gotten over the first hurdle. Our people understand and believe the need for the change we’re asking them to make, but we’ve still got to get over another hurdle, and that can be even more difficult.
Just because our people appreciate the need for change, doesn’t mean they believe we can pull it off successfully. In their minds, they may be thinking, “Geez, this is a big mountain to climb! How can we possibly reach the top of this thing?” As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are right.” So it’s vital that your people approach change with a positive, “can do” attitude. Kim and Mauborgne recommend something they call “atomization” . . . essentially, breaking the project down into individual tasks so that the entire project doesn’t seem quite so daunting. They also suggest using performance metrics to keep each individual focused on his or her task, to keep each team leader focused on what his or her team needs to accomplish, to keep each department head focused on what his or her department needs to accomplish, and so on. Of course, managers at the very top need to have the big picture, but the idea is to keep everyone else focused exclusively on their area of responsibility without getting caught up in the enormity of the overall project.
There are certainly other factors to be considered when contemplating a significant change in your organization, but if you begin by laying out a compelling case for the need to change, and then inspiring confidence in your people that, “We can do this!,” you’ll be well on your way to a successful implementation.
Rock Solid Business Development
Phone: (847) 665-9134
andy@rocksolidbizdevelopment.com
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