Change Management

Change managers are paid to anticipate resistance, to make strategy and contingency plans for it and, in short, to ensure a smooth transaction from an existing situation to something new.

Historically, apart from wars between countries, there have been some massive change projects that I would have been proud to have claimed to ‘have managed’ :

• 3 September 1967, Sweden switching from driving on the left to driving on the right,
• January 1, 2002: the Germans give up the Deutschmark for the Euro
• 28 March, 2005: the Irish introduce a no smoking ban in all public places, including pubs and cafe’s.

This week the French switched to a new style car number plate. Previously, the plate was issued to the person and not the car. It indicated the region from which the owner came from. As from this week the two digit regional identifier has been removed causing much upset and push back.

Probably the most resented of all the French regions is 75. If you live in Troyes and you see a car badly parked, you would likely be inclined to look at its number plate and if it turned out to be from the region 75 then you would most likely explain it away by saying “typical Parisian!” And if you were stuck behind a dithering car in the capital city and noticed that the plate came from your local home town, you would probably sympathize with the driver and refrain from honking your horn.

And so is it, from now French children won’t have the fun game of spotting regions on long car journeys, and everyone will lose (against their will) the link between themselves and their regions. But the French authorities have brought in one concession – they have left a space at the end of the plate, where the owner can add a sticker indicating where they come from. Of course, like all last minute initiatives, this has not been thought through because people can put on any sticker they like. So Parisians on holiday in Reims can switch their stickers and pretend to be from somewhere else! How strange and unpredictable we humans are. How strange that we become so chauvinistic about where we come from and where we would like to be!

In my experience, change managers have the biggest difficulty not with handling massive changes but small ones. I once managed a change project for a multi-national company where we had to introduce US Qwerty keyboards into all their offices across the globe. In Spain and Germany (where quite frankly the impact was massive) the resistance was predictably vocal but balanced and a solution was found. In the UK, however, where the difference in the keyboard is almost zero (only the British pound sign is replaced by a $, and a couple of other very minor differences) the resistance was incredible. I had not expected it and had no plan in place to fight off the vociferous and passionate resistance. The argument thrown at me was that because the change was so small, there was no point in doing it! The UK resistors expected us to make technological changes to our platform and change our purchasing procedures where in every other country, the globalization argument of ‘anyone working anywhere’ had won the day.

Life is strange and people unpredictable and as long as it remains this way, us change managers will continue to have a purpose and a very interesting life!

Yesterday, when I am usually writing my blog, I was discussing with friends about an urgent need for change. And yet, by pure coincidence, today (while working on a project for one of my clients) I came across the three following statements:

“Faced with changing one’s mind, or proving that there is no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” – Lao Tzu

The interesting thing about these statements is that they apply equally to our private lives as in business. If everything is perfect then change is the last thing we need. However if things are really bad, most of us find it still too hard to change. My aunt often used to say “better the devil you know than the devil you do not know”. Well, what nonsense is that?

There is a really great line in a Steely Dan song:

“like a castle in its corner, in a medieval game, I foresee terrible trouble and I stay here just the same”. You might want to criticize the forced imagery but the truth the line conveys is extraordinary.

In business, everyday I am confronted by people that would like to change and improve things but somehow find the risk and the effort too much to keep them motivated to go through with the necessary action. But this is exactly where the interim manager must assist. It is our ‘duty’ to inspire, motivate and cajole people to rise to a higher level, to adapt to new environments and to grasp the challenges of what is out there to be won.

Really good interim managers, set out a plan and a strategy for change and do not rest until those around them see it and sign up to the program. Having achieved this first goal, the remainder of the assignment becomes operational – important, but none the less, not so enthralling.

In the past few weeks I have been surrounded by a bunch of people all wanting to implement change projects. This, in itself, is not unusual because I am currently the Change Manager for an international client with its eyes set on improvement. However what is surprising me is that many of the young managers are not asking the most basic of questions. ‘Why’

Here’s the scenario, they start off by coming to me with a problem, typically something like this:
“Jane in Purchasing won’t take me seriously”
“And why is that?” I ask
“Because she’s too busy” is the reply.
(It’s at this point that I put on my two year old questioning head, simply repeating one word: Why?)
“And why is she too busy?”
“Because she’s got too much work”
“and Why has she got too much work?”
“Because she can’t say no, I guess”
“And why can she not say no?” I continue.

This line of questioning continues for a few more minutes until my enquirer begins to get irritated by the level of detail, but the result is something like this:

“OK, so you have a problem. You are going to Jane for help, knowing that she is overworked and stressed out. You know that she is someone that can not say no to management, that she is not as efficient as she could be and her workload simply makes it worse. You are getting frustrated because she will not set aside some time for you to consider seriously a proposal you want to make to her, the result of which she fears is going to give her even more work? And you are junior to her?” - And you want me to solve this?’

“Yes’ is his reply…

I think for a minute. The one thing I am missing is, what is the change being proposed? After some lengthy explanation, which nearly sends me to sleep, trying to follow the complexity of it, I interrupt and recommence with my ‘why’ questioning.

“But why do you want to improve the efficiency of the purchasing process?”
“Why do you want to speed up decision making?”
“Why do you want to etc.…”

The end result is that after the in depth questioning, my enquirer understands that the result of the proposed change is in fact that there could be a significant reduction in unnecessary company overhead costs and what’s more without too much risk and fuss. I then ask him who else in the organization would be interested in the savings, and then he understands what I have been driving at the whole time.

In change management it is essential to understand exactly what the objective is of a proposed change, not at the implementation level but at one level below increasing shareholder value. Once you know this, you simply need to use your findings as the angle to draw attention to your crusade.

Result:

Purchasing process improvement Objective (as announced to senior management):
‘I want to reduce 0,5MEUR unnecessary company expenditure off the overhead budget per year.’
This can be achieved by xyz…
Additional benefits are: improved company / supplier relationships, better deployment of employee resources, lower carbon emission footprint.

All this is not magic, it’s simply having the strength to ask the most important, yet, irritating question of all, ‘Why?’