Change Management Disney Style (Part 2)

, ,

Following on from my previous blog post, I am now going to share more insight from the magical wonderland that is Disney. Well actually the pause for thoughts I had with some other experiences whilst on vacation there.

Every day there are a series of parades and presentations at various places across the park. These are high profile, themed events with a significant number of Disney characters. The parades are less interactive but a number of the events are far more interactive with both kids and adults alike being pulled into the atmosphere and getting engaged with the “stars”. Viewing this put a permanent smile on all around as well as those involved. The whole atmosphere was taken up to a happier fun time – a true Disney magic moment!

What did I learn from these events? It made me think of organizational culture and the way change managers work with businesses to influence and encourage a more receptive audience within the business. If a business decides to restructure, change its processes or reposition itself – one of the key roles of getting the business ready for the change is to help the people understand and be receptive to the change. All the explanations in the world can be made, but if you stick to a system of talking at people, the likelihood is that they won’t engage with the new ethos, culture or approach. But getting them to take an active part in the change process, including them in the development and delivery produces a different take on the change. Their involvement encourages not just acceptance of the upcoming change, but also promotes a cultural shift within the organization to embrace the change and no doubt take it on far faster than otherwise. So my recommendation is to get the people involved in the change development, develop change agents in the business from those at the front of the acceptance line and take forward the change as an engaging and inclusive experience and never just tell people about the change.

I noticed that there are two types of eating establishments at the core of Disney food provision. One involves an all as you can eat menu, with a fixed price and a buffet style of food gathering. The second is the table based service, where you order from a menu and pay for what you order. Now I never went to any of the buffet – all you can eat fiestas, preferring to choose specific items, but they were extremely popular. This made me think about the amount of effort we put into delivering communications, learning events and explanations of change events. We rarely provide the “buffet” experience. Should we perhaps consider a central point for all information about a change and allow people to come along as and when they want to, gathering as much information as they can manage, but enabling them to come back time and again. Now I have seen that successfully done with project plans and implementation plans for IT delivery, in simple calendar styles and use of internal intranets, information boards and libraries to provide a single point of access to all information about a certain upcoming change. I agree that this has to be supplemented with other engagement activities, but sometimes its worth remembering that different people learn in different ways, and for some that may mean they will learn best by just going and getting information as it arises.

My final point to share about the Disney experience relates to the journey out of there, or more to the point, the problems we had. We were leaving by train, from the Parc Disney – Marne la Vallée-Chessy station, through to London, with a change in Lille. We had done the same journey there and ha a few moments but generally it has gone without issue. However, the TGV train we were supposed to catch up to Lille, was running late. The frustrations I felt in just seeing train departure times pushed back, several times, and every one without communications, is totally understandable. My French is not perfect but good enough to understand station announcements. When over 2 hours later it arrived, I was not best pleased.

However, they put us in first class on the TGV and because we had missed the proper connection in Lille, the stopped a through train to get us to London and equally upgraded us to the top tier on board. So by the time we got to London, almost 2 hours later than planned, we were tired but less angry with the train issue. What is my point on this train journey? Well apart from good reactions to customer services etc. it gave me two thoughts. The first is to always explain why a change event is being pushed back time and again. A lack of communication, and effective and appropriate communications at that, can disengage people with an upcoming change. Make sure they understand why the delivery dates or go live dates are changed and understand how that will be accounted for. The second point reflects the way we were upgraded on the train. If things are not going well, accept that people will be developing anger and frustration, so perhaps you need to find a way to provide some cream or sugar on top. If the system is being delayed, or the relocation pushed back, can you now provide it with something extra to make the wait worthwhile? Don’t be afraid to push the project sponsor or project manager to deliver a little more than originally planned to make up for the delays and subsequent frustrations.

When planning this vacation, I never expected to find so many opportunities for change management reflection but I guess it just goes to show how much it is an integral part of the way people lead their life and the experience through it reflects the constant change taking place in the world.

/0 Comments/by

Change Management Disney Style (Part 1)

, ,

I have been away on vacation. Yes even I take a break from work. Part of the trip away involved a week in Disneyland Paris. The experience of getting there and back, as well as the time in the park certainly gave me many thoughts on change management practice, and that’s why learning about finance and investing is important, and using sites as  day-traders.net could be really helpful to make good investments and making more money for you and your business.

Beginning with communications, it’s interesting that as a European site, they have to accommodate the variety of languages across the continent. It’s based in France, so French comes in to play as the stalwart, but then they also provide English and generally Spanish across the park. Mix that with some German, Dutch and occasional Italian and it made me realize the communications challenges that prevail here and how well they have worked to keep things simple. الفرق المتأهلة ليورو 2024 They use visual indicators wherever possible so the need for the different languages was not required. This made me think of the challenges we face as change managers to communicate a change across a business or to internal and external stakeholders. Why do we so often write up long and complicated explanations or instructions when perhaps a simple image or graphic will do? We sit there and try and work out how to speak to Finance, IT and all other sorts of other operational areas in different ways using their own language, yet maybe we can use a graphic or image to describe a change and have that understood by all. Perhaps even the use of pictures in preference to words…. لعبه كوتشينة They say a picture tells a thousand words.

One morning on entering the ticketing area to go through to the park, we were stopped from taking a short cut and made to follow a long path back out and in again, slightly more than 3 feet to the left of where we began. Why did we have to do this? Rules I guess, but we were given no explanation. Of course while the three of us were backtracking to come back along the second line route, we were watching by the eagle eyes “cast member”. Focusing so much on us then allowed seven or so people to take the short cut route we had been scolded for using. I was annoyed and frustrated by this “rules is rules” approach, but then began to consider why it happened. No doubt this was the most important task for that individual and they were happily enforcing what they had been told. But I wondered if they had been told why – perhaps there was some record keeping, health and safety or security reason for ensuring a set path through the ticket stalls was taken by all visitors. I reflected on the need to explain why changes are happening for people. I we don’t put perspective on the change then the individual may make the change within a set and rigid environment – almost just for the sake of the change, without considering the purpose or underlying reasons for making the change. We need to get away from expecting people to follow orders and to encourage active engagement and free thinking. عدد بطولات رونالدو مع البرتغال When people understand why the change is happening they are going to be more enthusiastic and human about the change event.

For any of you with experience of Disney parks, you will be aware that they have lands within the Disneyland Park. Within each land there are a number of experiences (aka rides). Now it crossed my mind that there were 3 of these activities that were very similar. Each of these involved riding in a cart, attached to a pole. There were 12 or so of these poles attached to a central pole and they were spun round, by the central pole, with opportunities to rise up and down. A Spin-lifter, I believe it is called. Now these types of experiences at Disneyland are dressed to fit in with a Disney theme. So we had one dressed to be a setoff flying Dumbo the elephants, one set as Aladdin’s magic carpets and one as “future world” rockets. What struck me was that my nephew was nervous about riding one of these, but once he had ridden in Aladdin, he was happy to do them all as he recognized the core design was the same. So it made me think about integrating changes and how we can use the opportunity in reverse. No matter how something is dressed up, if it is fundamentally the same at the core, then people who have experience a successful change through one environment, will embrace a similar one more readily. So if we have successfully introduced an organizational restructure, brought along a new IT system or changes the way reporting is made – if we want to do something similar again as a further improvement or business benefit, then stripping it back to its core purpose and relating it to the previous event, will engage people much more easily.

Ok I think that’s enough Disney reflection for now – magic moments, parades and eating establishments will be part of my next posting – the good, the bad and the downright bizarre!

/0 Comments/by

The When of Change Management (Part1)

, , , , ,

Thinking of all your standard questions, how, what and why is probably best followed by when. I’ve done recent posts about how to change (Kotter) what is involved (change symphony) and why to use change management. So this is all about when to change.

Kurt Lewin has one of the simplest change management models that you could want to understand. It has just 3 stages: Unfreeze, change, freeze (or sometimes referred to as refreeze). I love the simplicity of this model, and although there have been many more models since this was put out there in the 1950’s it still holds true as a description of the process of change.

Taking forward this model, the time to change is when you are ready to unfreeze. That is when you are in the position to begin changing things. How do you know when this occurs? Good question! In simple terms it is the point in time when all the drivers for change are in place and ready to go. can ivermectin be bought over the counter in malaysia

What does this mean in simple terms? If it’s an IT project then this is the time where the business is ready to integrate, roll out or put in place the software or hardware across the business units, divisions or company! If it’s a process change, this is when we say – here you go do it this way now, or maybe its when the new office is bought and the business is ready to move.

OK, so those are all a bit simplistic, and I am sure you are aware from reading my other pieces you will understand that there is more to do before you go to this stage, and that true! You need to prepare for change and a good change manager will most definitely work on the learning, communications and cultural aspects of the business and its people to get ready for this point in time. However, in most cases the change point will be determined by an operational or project manager! ivermectin tics However, that has nothing to do with the business being in a good shape to undergo change, that’s just a functional, operational or business driver to make things happen.

I’d like to turn things a little up on their head here! Let’s ignore projects and operational units, and examine cultural readiness and willingness to change. how to apply scaboma lotion on hair Well perhaps not today, but in the next part of the when of change!

/0 Comments/by

Catching up with Kotter

, , , , ,

It’s been a while since I’d refreshed my mind with the wonders of John Kotter and his 8 steps for managing change. Our Iceberg is Melting[1] is still one of my favourite change books and I recommend it as a great introduction to anyone about to undergo some change activity.
Read more

/0 Comments/by