Change Event Announcement<\/strong><\/h2>\nOrganization Opportunity called a meeting for all employees to be held early one morning.\u00a0 This type of \u201ctown hall\u201d meeting had never been done before.\u00a0 Staff were curious and somewhat nervous.\u00a0 The room had posters saying \u201cProject X.\u201d \u00a0A large cake was brought into the room with Project X written across it.\u00a0 The 400 employees walked into a large conference room.\u00a0 Coffee was served.\u00a0 The President spoke about the need for a change in \u201chow we\u2019re working, how we\u2019re structured, our products and services, etc.\u201d\u00a0 Staff tension increased with the uncertainty as to what does this mean to them.\u00a0 Then he concluded his remarks with; \u201cWe\u2019re going on a journey.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know where it\u2019ll end up but there are no planned lay-offs though the work each of you are now doing may change, reporting relationships may change and your work environments may change\u201d.\u00a0 I was called up to introduce the process they\u2019ll undertake for the change.\u00a0 At this early stage there were only two key steps to be done.\u00a0 One was to create a Steering Committee to oversee the journey.\u00a0 The other was to launch a contest to name this change initiative.\u00a0 In the interim they called it Project X.\u00a0 There was some level of excitement mixed with continued uncertainty.\u00a0 This is a normal response.<\/p>\n
Organization Challenge took a different route to start their journey.\u00a0 The CEO of this 250 person organization decided to hold a \u201ctown hall\u201d all day meeting and use this meeting to rapidly go through some of the first steps in the Strategic Change Management process with all the employees.\u00a0 The intent was to gain early and quick buy-in to the change. \u00a0\u00a0Employees were organized at round tables of 10.\u00a0 One member of the management team was assigned to one or two tables as a facilitator.\u00a0 I had spent time with them to overview what we\u2019ll do in the course of this day and how they can help facilitate each team through the steps, ensuring everything is documented.<\/p>\n
The Strategic Change Management Process Steps I Undertook with Both Organizations<\/h2>\n
Stage 1 \u2013 Create the Steering Committee<\/strong><\/p>\nThe steering committee oversees the entire journey of change.\u00a0 They are a mix of management and staff level employees.\u00a0 They are an on-going, not temporary, body though members may change every 6 months to a year.\u00a0 The steering committee oversees the entire journey to ensure it is on track, makes recommendations, develops implementation strategies, implements these approved strategies and communicates to all employees throughout the journey.<\/em><\/p>\nOrganization Challenge identified their Steering Committee members at the conclusion of their all-day meeting.\u00a0 Their mandate was to take, from the all-day employee meeting, the organizational change readiness outcomes, strategic change visions and change strategies as the basis for the development of their final plan.<\/p>\n
Organization Opportunity identified 8 individuals comprised of management team members and selected individuals from various departments.\u00a0 Although these committee members were pre-determined, staff were informed that there\u2019ll be opportunities for many of them to be involved in the implementation of the change strategies, once developed.\u00a0 These details will be included in their first employee communication.\u00a0 They collected all of the ideas for a name for this change initiative and agreed on the name \u201cevolution\u201d.\u00a0 A gift basket was awarded to the winner.<\/p>\n
Stage 2 \u2013 Identify Organizational Change Readiness<\/strong><\/p>\nOne of the Steering Committee\u2019s first tasks is employee engagement.\u00a0 This is accomplished by bringing staff together in small focus groups, providing each focus group with an opportunity to \u201cvent\u201d and to talk about the past in a safe environment.\u00a0\u00a0 These sessions are organized so that staff, working in their focus group teams, respond to structured questions focused on how they have felt about the past and how they are feeling about the present.\u00a0 A skilled facilitator is required to help move this discussion from the negative to the positive.\u00a0 The Steering Committee also assesses change readiness through the use of a Change Culture Assessment.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\nOrganization Challenge posed a question to each team in their all-day meeting:<\/p>\n
Think of a time in your experience, within your organization\/department, when a change was handled poorly, a time when a fairly major change in direction, methods, policies etc. was attempted but back-fired or was implemented poorly or slowly and encountered real resistance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Each team was then asked to record:<\/p>\n
\n- The nature of the change<\/li>\n
- How the change was initiated<\/li>\n
- How it affected productivity and morale<\/li>\n
- How it affected them and others<\/li>\n
- What they disliked about the change.<\/li>\n
- What they liked about the change.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Teams concluded their discussion with a list of \u201cWhat is necessary to make change happen successfully?\u201d<\/p>\n
Organization Opportunity held focus groups throughout the organization with up to 15 individuals in each group.\u00a0 Approximately \u00bc of all employees participate.\u00a0 I facilitated these to ensure an environment of openness.\u00a0 The outcome was similar to the success seen in the Organization Challenge sessions.\u00a0 Organization Opportunity followed this with a Change Culture Assessment.\u00a0 This assessment was given to all employees.\u00a0 This ensured all employees had an opportunity to provide feedback on how they wanted this change to be managed.\u00a0 We had almost 90% participation from employees which is well above all averages for employee feedback surveys.\u00a0 Between the focus group inputs and change assessments, the steering committee had a lot of great information to help them develop the vision and strategies for the change initiative.<\/p>\n
The process of employee engagement helped both Organizations move their staff into a sense of control and engagement.\u00a0 Of course there was some scepticism.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve done this before\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cThey never listen to us.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s the point\u201d, etc.\u00a0 This placed a huge burden on the Organizations to honour this past and to recognize the need to engage employees throughout their change processes using ideas from their employees on how to make it happen successfully.<\/p>\n
Stage 3 \u2013 Create the Strategic Change Vision<\/strong><\/p>\nThis is the creative part of the Strategic Change Management Process.\u00a0 The Steering Committee creates their vision of what the future will look like, once the entire change process has been successfully implemented and the new culture is apparent.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\nOrganization Challenge and Organization Opportunity used a similar process for creating their change vision.\u00a0 I took them into the future and asked them to develop a story describing their organization, its employees, customers, structure, etc. in 5 years time.<\/p>\n
These scenarios were created in each team during the Organization Challenge\u2019s all day session.\u00a0 They read them out to each other.\u00a0 Applause broke out at the end of each presentation.\u00a0 It was an incredible event to see.<\/p>\n
Organization Opportunity created this story during a steering committee meeting.\u00a0 It gave them a sense of control over their future.\u00a0 Both Organizations found that reviewing the outcome from the employee focus groups and the change assessments helped them to develop these scenarios.<\/p>\n
Stage 4 \u2013 Develop the Change Strategies<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Change Strategies close the gap between the present and the \u201cideal future\u201d as defined in the vision.\u00a0 Essentially, the change strategies move the vision of what the organization is trying to become in the employee\u2019s and customer\u2019s eyes into reality.<\/em><\/p>\nOrganization Challenge had spent almost a day together in their meeting.\u00a0 Before leaving I had the teams identify the key events they believed were necessary in order to get closer to their future scenarios and to align with what they believe is necessary to make change happen successfully (from their first team discussions).\u00a0 They were clear and surprisingly similar between the teams.\u00a0 This provided wonderful direction to the steering committee.\u00a0 The steering committee\u2019s first meeting took two days to combine all of the information from the day long employee session.\u00a0 When they ended, they had a clear vision and change strategies for their initiative.\u00a0 They started to create their communication plan to present to all employees.<\/p>\n
Organization Opportunity\u2019s steering committee identified 7 key strategies.\u00a0 They started the development of their communication plan but wanted to wait until they gave some thought to a high level change plan before delivering it.<\/p>\n
Stage 5 \u2013 Create the Change Plan<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Change Plan includes identifying the Objectives required to meet each of the Change Strategies and the detailed Action Plan required to meet each identified Objective.\u00a0 Performance measures are added to ensure that it is clear when each change strategy and related objective has been met.<\/em><\/p>\nOrganization Opportunity moved into high gear at this stage.\u00a0 They developed a communication plan and organized another \u201ctown hall\u201d meeting to present it to all employees.\u00a0 At this meeting they reviewed their change strategies and their plan to implement these.\u00a0 It required assistance from all employees.\u00a0 They posted sheets at the back of the room with the change strategies and a request for volunteers for each one.\u00a0 Each strategy would be headed by a member of the steering committee to oversee each change strategy team.\u00a0 They had an overwhelming response.\u00a0 Teams were formed for communication, culture, training, business process reviews, etc.\u00a0 The steering committee promised, through the communication team, to produce regular newsletters updating all employees of the progress towards each change strategy.<\/p>\n
Within 6 months the effects of the change in Organization Opportunity could be felt.\u00a0 The culture had been re-shaped, key business processes improved, the organizational structure revamped including reporting relationships.\u00a0 Productivity increased, morale increased and customer satisfaction levels increased.\u00a0 You can walk into the organization and \u201cfeel\u201d the difference.<\/p>\n
Organization Challenge was different.\u00a0 The steering committee developed a comprehensive communication plan.\u00a0 They were going to ask for volunteers to help create committees to implement the actions required to ensure each change strategy was successfully implemented.\u00a0 They presented their plan to the CEO for approval.\u00a0 The corporation promoted the CEO the next day and moved him to another division.\u00a0 This created a delay in the communication plan\u2019s delivery. \u00a0A new CEO started 4 weeks later.\u00a0 I desperately tried to connect with her.\u00a0 The steering committee appealed to her to allow them to proceed, at least with smaller steps.\u00a0 She had her own agenda.\u00a0 The change plan was never implemented.\u00a0 The staff became disillusioned.\u00a0 This will now become one of their descriptions of a change, badly managed.<\/p>\n
![\"Actknowledge_people_in_process_and_action\"](\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Actknowledge_people_in_process_and_action-300x225.jpg\")
This is the true story of two organizations that have recently undergone significant change. \u00a0Economics forced them to re-examine their key business processes and staff allocations in order to continue to survive and hopefully – grow.\u00a0 I have changed their names in order to protect the innocent.\u00a0 We\u2019ll call them Organization Opportunity and Organization Challenge.\u00a0 One situation was a success while the other failed although the same process was used in both cases.<\/p>\n