News/Social

Plateaus and Intersections

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:48:00 GMT

Authored By: Mark Bernardi

Our work in change implementation is often being the coach, cheerleader, or rumble-strip for the client whose effort is a protracted uphill climb, or long walk against a steady headwind. It is mostly the role of giving guidance about pace, staying on track, keeping momentum. It is about giving and garnering the encouragement to complete the marathon.

One of our first large-scale projects involved a 52 week communications campaign that was loaded onto the shoulders of first line supervisors who didn’t want to participate. The VP of manufacturing spent a year role-modeling, coaxing, cajoling, and sometimes removing supervisors who could not or would not come around. Around the “20^th Monday” he commented that he never guessed the amount of energy it took to change the habits of a group of people. Every week it was the same drill. At the end we were all amazed at how far they had all come, but in the middle months it was all about finding the energy and determination to take the next step forward.

Then there are the other projects and initiatives that are riddled with intersections. Our role at these crossroads is to help the client make decisions, choose directions, and bend the course of change to remain consistent with the original intents. Each intersection is an opportunity to become lost, misdirected, or blindsided by cross traffic. As change consultants we anticipate the potential for these junctures and layer in plans and preparations so we are not checking the map or asking for directions in the middle of the intersection.

During the initial implementation of the Tenets of Safe Operation in Global Refining the VP came to a crossroads based on adherence to Refining Policy. Our deployment strategy called for him to meet with each refinery’s Refinery Manager and the Refining Operations Manager for one day to clarify and document commitments and performance measures around Tenets implementation at their respective refineries. These meetings were to be held so that two pairs of refinery managers would be meeting with the VP on the same day so they would have some peer feedback and brainstorming capacity. Standard Operating Procedure did not allow for the Refinery Manager and Operations Manager to be absent from the refinery at the same time. One of the refinery managers, who was a bit recalcitrant, invoked this policy and suggested that the meetings could be done by conference call. We either had to change this step in the deployment strategy (Turn Left!) or change the policy (Go straight through the intersection). The Refining VP took the issue before the Downstream President and the Chairman with a recommendation to allow the policy exception as it punctuated the importance of top leadership commitment. The meetings were held as planned, preserving a core value in the strategy – Tenets implementation relies on visible, individual commitment demonstrated behaviorally.
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Technology Assisted Standardization – Taking People Out of the Equation

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:28:00 GMT

Authored by: Mark Bernardi

Someday soon you will be able to fly to the BVI’s, charter a sailboat, turn on your “auto-nav” unit, pick five anchorages, press “set sail,” and follow the instructions broadcast over the boat’s on-board audio system telling you step-by-step how to cast off, turn the engine on, engage the auto-pilot, and crack open your favorite beverage while your boat follows the dotted line to your first port of call…But is it really sailing? Many commercial pilots ask that question about programmed flight controls and course navigation…Is it really flying? Can we be satisfied with “just being along for the ride?

History as a Context for Change - Change and Expectancy Theory

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 02:39:00 GMT

So much of how we view life is through the lens of history. In most cases it is our own personal history, our collection of experiences and emotions. For the scholar, history can include local, national, or international experiences that color the way in which we view the current. I'm not different, I'm innately biased by my experiences and in fact use history to determine future actions. Organizations are not different.

Creating future change is very muuch about history. The culture within an organization is the result of its history. The unique stories, the architypes, the reason certain behaviors are reinforced and others discouraged, all have something to say about an organization's ability to execute on a change. One reason that change efforts fail is that they fail to contemplate the historical context in which change is taking place. There are many aspects to historical context but the one I'm interested in today is the internal organizational project or initiative history that affects individual expectancy.

In 1964 Victor Vroom developed what is now commonly referred to as Expectancy Theory. For my purposes the theory can be reduced to a simple equation:

Motivation = Expectancy + Instrumentality + Valence

Expectancy = the likelihood that effort will result in a desired performance
Instrumentality = the likelihood that the desired performance will result in desired outcomes
Valence = the relative positive or negative impact of those outcomes to an individual

What does this have to do with historical context? A persons history with change in an organization and even a particular kind of change, affects how they view participating the next change. They develop expectations that:

Effort will or will not lead to changes in performance
Negative behavior will not lead to negative individual outcomes
Good or bad performance will not have a significant sway on the overall organization outcome
The organization's outcome will or will not result in any personal benefit

If we consider our own history for a moment, we are all familiar with our own failures or successes. We've all broken a few new year's resolutions. We've all watched others go through joy and pain. If the failure or success is emotionally strong enough or often enough it affects the way we believe. "I can't lose weight!" "I always land on my feet." "I seem to have a knack for ____________(fill in the blank). These beliefs color what activities we are willing to participate in and the activties in which we refuse to take part.

Organizations experience the same things. Failed projects, successful acquisitions, or good market strategies and how the organization deals with these come to be part of the fabric of the organization's beliefs. In the same way we, as individuals, become hesitant to set new year's resolutions because we know we'll break them, individuals and organizations come to believe that their efforts will fail or succeed because of history.

To break out of this history (or capitalize on it), sustainable change programs need to contemplate and plan for addressing/changing beliefs, culture and people's expectancy about their efforts and future. There are some simple tools/approaches that can help:

Communications - about the change should articulate WIIFM (what's in it for me) for each level of the organization. They should reinforce the liklihood of success either by talking about what is being done to ensure success and how that is consistent with or a departure from past successes.
Engagement - Any implementation should involve engagement, the two way dialogue and personalization that helps individuals and departments understand how their efforts support the successful strategy execution and what it means to that individual or department. This is also referred to as organizational alignment.
Quick Wins - communicate that effort does lead to a change in performance and help individuals and organizations change their expectations that effort and performance will create change.
Don't Ignore Culture - for some companies, creating change is culture change. This is particularly true where cultures have ignored failure, or even rewarded mediocrity. This means that you need to tell new stories, reward new behaviors, and reverence new icons. If culture is a shared paradigm, then you must change the paradigm of belief and expectancy to get different results.

Each of these address key questions that Expectancy Theory is concerned with:

What is the likelihood that my extra effort will really yield a change in performance?
What is the likelihood that the performance change will really produce what the strategy intends?
What is the likelihood that the strategy outcome will really influence me?
Will that outcome be positive or negative (or more positive or negative than other options)?

A wise professor once told me that the benefit of a particular theory isn't derived from whether it is right or wrong, but from what it can help you see, even better what it can help you predict. If this is true, then Expectancy Theory helps us see how to better leverage individual and shared expectancies (history) to create future success. Do you know how your history is shaping your future? What are you doing about it?
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Letting Go - Precursor to Change

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 02:38:00 GMT

I recently took one of my children on a road trip to look at colleges. It was a bittersweet time for me as a parent. My daughter's enthusiasm evoked in me both an excitement and a melancholy. Excitement as I considered the great things that were ahead for her and melancholy at the thought of not having her at home. This upcoming change is not unlike other changes that we are faced with in life.

Effective change is really about endings and beginnings or another way of thinking about it is to say it is about embracing and letting go. Those who have change done to them invoke the "wing walker's rule," which is to not let go of one thing until you firmly have a hold of something else. The challenge of motivating people to change is to convince others to "let go" of the old way of doing things so that they can embrace the new way. This has been mentioned in the literature for years. Connor, in his book, Managing at the Speed of Change, talks about the need for a "burning platform" for change. The idea that nobody will worry about the challenges of jumping from a offshore oil rig if the platform is on fire. It is easier to get somebody to let go of the old if they are convinced that they new way will make their life better. The age old expressions, "my way or the highway" also comes to mind, meaning, that if you want to hang on to your job you'll do exactly what I say. While this is effective in the short term, over the long term it has a tendency to jeopardize the organization's productivity and overall latent capacity to respond to future challenges. Whatever your approach to change, may I offer some suggestions for facilitating organizations through the process of letting go.

1. Celebrate and honor the past. This might mean honoring the former leader of an organization, having a symbolic burial of past icons, recognize those who have kept an old system or process going despite its challenges, or it may simply mean getting people together for a "town hall" to celebrate and signal a transition.

2. Create compelling case for change - make the benefits to the individual and organization real and tangible. What will this do for the organization and for the individuals? This has to be clear, believable and sincere to convince someone to let go of what they have in exchange for a promise of something yet to be realized.

3. Eliminate competing initiatives and priorities. So often companies devise a new strategy but do not "let go" of all the activities that they had previously. The rationale? "It is an 'and' world!" However, organization members often see this as management's inability to prioritize or worse yet, a ploy to get them to do more with less. Role model the "let go" and the embrace.

4. Put Yourself At Risk - Demonstrate your personal willingness to let go of something secure and put yourself at risk with the change. Lead the charge, share the risk. Often changes in organizations are initiated on one side of the firewall, but the actual change takes place on the other side of the firewall. If the change fails, those who initiated it are secure, but those responsible for execution are at risk. Let go of your personal security so that others might as well.

To be sure, to embrace change is critical to success, but before we can begin to embrace, we must "let go" of that which holds us back.
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