Appreciating Someone’s “A-ha!” Moment

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Recently I’ve had a few people ask to meet with me to understand what I do. Now beyond my initial response of “a heck of a lot of things” I’ve tried to explain as clearly as I could what change management is. ivermectin paint But its got me thinking a lot recently about how people see change management. As someone who is inside that labeled world it’s very easy to forget how many people have an alternate or non-understanding of the term. So, I did a very unscientific ask of some friends, past colleagues and other random people that work in my building. Here the results:

Most people, even those that I have worked with, equate change management to the management of changes. Some even thought it was like project management, a term which most knew although I didn’t really probe on their understanding. ivermectin no longer toxic dogs A few people said it was part of project management (!!! ivermectina para humanos precio peru ) although when pushed on this they redeemed themselves somewhat when they explained they thought it was about managing changes to and within projects. The next definition to arise was about software changes and changing elements of IT configuration. Finally, I had some people say it’s about helping people in projects, which I take as a close enough accurate response of understanding. I did get one person just look at me blankly and move away – is it that scary?

However, anyone can see this is not a perfect set of responses but does totally reaffirm for me how much work the community needs to do in promoting the discipline.

Around 5 years ago I began my involvement with the Association of Change Management Professionals.I have been fortunate enough to develop a number of areas within the Association as well having opportunity to support many more. I first came to the Association when searching for somewhere that got what I did and I was pleased to find it. I had previously been approached by the Change Management Institute to set up their UK presence but as I was moving country that wasn’t practical. However I did want to ensure I worked to push forward understanding and adoption of change management wherever I was based and even where I wasn’t. So getting greater understanding has always been in my heart, as soon as my heart, head and soul found the space to exist in the realm too. I have a part written book on the subject that got pushed to one side when I realized that my goal is to take my knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the subject and impart it on others. That was the catalyst for my learning portfolio and the certified change agents program. It gives me great reward to have someone in the middle of a workshop jump up and go “I get it” and another come up to me at the end of the workshop and ask how they can pursue the field in more detail as it really gets them excited to explore. Both happened at the end of today’s CCA Workshop!

So my amateur research has made me realize that we still have a long way to go in getting people to readily understand the change management idea, which in itself gives me the impetus to keep progressing my quest to educate the world on change management.

That quest is confirmed as I see a developing curiosity about the field including disruptive change and dynamic development of potential. This latter part being a new addition to me areas of exploration that prompted me to co-found Curiosity Culture Inc. There is a direct between curiosity and change and I am excited to be pushing this forward. Who knows maybe I will be part of a curiosity professional association in the future!

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Grow your organizational change capacity through high quality change agents

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I repeatedly hear that change is getting more and more complex, more and more frequent and more and more rapid. www.beoutq/live The constant demands are for better, faster, cheaper, leaner, brighter and more heroic organizations. They must be more efficient, less complex and more dynamic, making more money and producing higher quality output. It’s all about more, more, more! What can organizations do to be ready for the phenomenal amount of change that they are lining up for their future?

My view is that they need to build greater change capacity, to be change ready and change agile. Having the ability to manage many changes concurrently is a challenge – I remember a change register holding over 300 initiatives at one organization – but if you build a dispersed capacity, to support, assist and enable change at all levels, then you will have a ready build network for greater change capacity.

To build this capacity you need to recognize that organizations are best served by a mix of individual involvement. Many employees with varying levels of change responsibility need to be included. I refer to three levels of change agent activism:

  • Level 1 are your full time change related roles. People employed as change managers, project leads, project managers and some of the business analysts.
  • Level 2 are your “some of the time” change people. These people do change as part of their job, either because they support the roles of full time change agents (think BA and Project support) or because their role has some level of responsibility to deliver communications, learning events or manage people going through changes regularly.
  • Level 3 are your “arms-length” change people. People who experience some level of change but this is not a fundamental part of their role and not something they are allocated time and resourcing to do. Yet often they are the front line or managers of front line staff who are going through the change event whether it be office relocation, policy and process change or the new HR technology being introduced.

3 levels of change agentIt is the level 2 and 3 people that need to be supported and unfortunately are often neglected. Many times over I have seen an organization put effort into tier 1 people and the tier 1 people are then expected to do everything and the next levels are not involved until they are “told what is happening” or “instructed to comply”. العاب عل النت And we wonder why so many people get resistant and change fatigue? Its not the level of change it’s the way they are supported to deal with it and hence the organization as a whole. كزينو

I recommend, encourage and advocate for more organizations to build in wider change programs for those employees in the second and third levels of exposure. The numbers are far greater, but the impact is equally greater. If you increase the knowledge base at this level, you increase the knowledge across the organization and produce a far more change capable organization.

Click for the Certified Change Agent program

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The Benefits of Change Agent Networks

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I’m still amazed how many times I have a conversation with a potential client that includes some or all of the following phrases:

  • “But doesn’t the change manager convince everyone to change?”
  • “So I am bringing in a resource to do all the change work so there’s no pressure on my staff”
  • “So the project manager has everything under control, I just want you to come in to help get the people on board with this”
  • “So if you can just prepare the check lists for our project manager, that’s all we really need from you”

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I’ve been made a Change Agent – what now?

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How are you Developing Change Agents in your organization? You know those people placed to support a change, but continue doing the day job as well! Possibly you are one of those people or if not, you know someone who is.

I’ve been involved in strategic, organizational and business change confused guyfor almost 20 years. Time and time again I have seen organizations appoint (or is it anoint?) change agents across the business, with a remit that requires them to be local supporter, advocate and eyes, ears and mouthpiece for change, whilst of course continuing to excel at their usual role.

These people are expected to take on the role of change agent and masterfully negotiate the role – off the side of their desk, or beyond. These people are provided with minimal training, coaching or mentoring to prepare themselves for the role – a change in itself for the individual.

In a past role, I worked hard to build up a network of such change agents across an organization. The diversity of operations, size and structural responsibility meant that as the change management person, I needed to rely on people to be the localised presence for my role. Now some of these people I was able to choose, others were chosen for me but the common factor was that these administrators, managers and specialists were all asked to this work as well as their existing role.

To successfully develop these people into change agents I started with Change Management 101 sessions, developing their understanding of peoples reactions to change, how we manage the people side of change and how this interacts with projects and other business activities. Using this knowledge and engaging them in great conversations, I shared my experiences of change and helped them to prepare for the role with shared knowledge and experience.

We also created some cool ways of getting people to share their thoughts, without spending hours in meetings and completing surveys. I got the Change Agents to think and work smart when it came to being the touch points for change in their areas and then worked to develop them into a  successful change agent network through clearly understanding their role, with clear expectations and direction, but also access to a great tool kit of readily available information to support them in their endeavours.

We were able to cascade consistent and influential messages to the right people at the right time through these effective practices and of course create an enterprise wide planning approach using the feedback from all the change agents to inform strategic alignment and operational benefits.

Having been through this pathway and developed this successful network of change agents, I have now developed a workshop for others being thrown into this role. Using some of the work I did on my Challenge of Change workshop and of course my own experience, I’m now launching the Developing Change Agents Workshop as a 2 way interactive workshop, bringing together those that are new to change management and/or being asked to take on the role of change agent in their organization. I take the opportunity to discuss the impact of change, the role of change agent and cover things like the difference between project management and change management. It includes lots of activity and real life examples to help attendees get themselves in the mindset needed to be successful in the role of change agent.

More information on the Developing Change Agents workshop can be found by clicking here. 

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Shakespearean Transformation

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I was recently fortunate enough to visit Stratford Ontario for a couple of performances in their Shakespeare Festival. This got me thinking that for stories that are over 400 years old, a lot of transformation and change within the plot lines and many of the humour and emotive responses found throughout can be related to modern day change resistance, acceptance and approach!

So I thought it would be fun to reference content that resonates with myself and discuss their relevance today.

Now a disclaimer and an alert before we begin. I’m not going to attempt a blog post in rhyming couplets, that’s just a little beyond my capability index. Apologies if I don’t mention your favourite, I’m sure there are many other quotes I could use, but I have not been privy to the full canon of Shakespeare – yes its one for the bucket list – but I’m most definitely short of a few kings, some other comical interludes and probably only about fifty percent exposed. I guess I should also give a spoiler alert to those that have not seen a production of one of the mentioned plays – yes plot lines may be shared!

Where is a good place to begin? Maybe with one of my favourites – a play full of transformation and reactions to change – A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The story is summed up in “The course of true love never did run smooth” because the play is about those that do and don’t fall in love and change the focus of their affections through the interference of fairies but also the views of their parents. Now it may be anchored in personal love, but it makes me consider how totally committed to an opinion someone can become when they are convinced (even with magic!) to believe a certain viewpoint. There are lots of transformational events in the play, with key character Bottom, being given an ass’s head to reflect his foolery but as a local villager – getting to interact and have acceptance by Titania, Queen of the fairies and may be a reflection on the acceptance of change and a focus on message rather than the vehicle that brings the message. Throughout the play, the character of Puck is a devilish catalyst for the changes, often being instigator or at a least enabling supporter. Now I’m not saying he’s a good change manager as he does most things underhand and with mischief, but I do see him as a revolutionary catalyst for change that may shake things up significantly in good and bad ways but in so doing moves a group of people outside of their normal comfort zones with an end result of a better set up and greater appreciation of all players. I’m not a supporter of the activity generally, but sometime the end justifies the means – as long as there are no permanent casualties en route!

Let’s briefly move away from comedy and touch base on the gender changing roles within Shakespeare across all plays. We have the likes of Viola and Rosalind in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, Portia in the Merchant of Venice and to some degree Lady Macbeth, all assuming Male roles to assert a message and deal with a challenge faced within their world. I wouldn’t necessarily condone the lack of sexual equality – why does a woman have to be like a man to act this way – but let us not forget 400 years have passed since these stories formed. I would like to take the lesson that in order to enable, deliver or encourage a change, it is sometime necessary to take on a somewhat different role or persona to normal. I have many a time had to summon up the energy to perform a part in front of a town hall meeting to rally the assembled masses on to “the train” before they get left behind. The change is coming and I need to appeal to their needs to get buy-in and show myself as a role model that they can relate to, using their language and terminology to engage trust and respect. For me this normally exhausts me after the event but the performance is normally such that I get the groups convinced of the next steps and heading in the right direction, not unlike the character mentioned above!

The Shakespearean kings are generally much darker storylines and some of their transformations tend to me much more final. However, for most of them there is a transformation of mindset, whether it’s Lear’s slow disintegration into madness or the single minded need for revenge in Hamlet and Macbeth. It’s a reflection of how circumstance turns a mind to think or react differently and in so doing become an integral part of the way a person acts or does things. Consider how we encourage the integration, absorption or total acceptance of a new or different way of doing things within the change management world. Is it a fair reflection to say that sometime we drive folks crazy or slightly unhinged with our desire to get them on board with the new? I wonder if we should have more exit routes available to the establishment that provides a safer end result for those who struggle with doing different or accepting the new, before they sink into a Shakespearean mind storm.

My final reference comes from the star-crossed lovers of Romeo and Juliet. Now I could relate the houses of Capulet and Montague to most merger and acquisitions. Interestingly the reactions of members of each house reflect the general mix of reaction for any merger – some good, some bad, some totally sure they can sabotage the idea. But I wanted to reflect on the sad result at the end of the play, caused through lack of good communication. If only they had shared their plans there may well have been a different outcome, but its perhaps the fact that as an audience, you know the tragic irony of the outcome of the story from the prologue, and you are just watching the story unfold. How many times have you considered a change management plan, applied all elements and then realised you knew what was going to happen all along? Far too many times. However, it is wrong to assume from the outset what the result will be and great communication can challenge that expectation.

I am sure there are many more change management references within the tenets of Shakespeare – I have but scraped the surface here. I may return to this at a future time. For me the biggest take away from this is for people to realise that change has been dealt with by people for many years and is not some new thing! Perhaps we now label and categorise differently and my reflection of Shakespearean prose is not a direct historical reflection but does support the time honoured tradition of dealing with change successfully or not – “To be or not to be, that is the question”.

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Change in China – 10 Tips for Success

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I recently worked on an engagement in China. The core activity was an analysis of the companies HR and organization to recommend changes. كيف اعمل ايميل كونكر It was an enlightening opportunity for me. I experienced a totally different work ethic and learned so much about the way national identity informs cultural identity.

Here I offer my insight from the experience in the form of a set of recommendations for anyone who may be considering an assignment in China.

I begin with my favourite topic of communications. bqout Of course one of the communication challenges was the language. I didn’t know any Chinese on arrival. I can’t say I knew much on leaving. However I was fortunate to be working with someone who did. I did find that the younger Chinese were more capable in English and almost relished the opportunity to speak English with a native speaker. However, when you are taking time to interview a number of employees about the process and their feelings around their workplace you need to be able to use sometimes complex and irregular language. Recommendation 1: make sure you have someone to work with who can translate good business English.

Reflecting on the content of the communications there are two areas to mention. Chinese folks do no want to say something bad about a colleague or someone in their group. Chinese also like to tell you the story of what happened with scene setting and surrounding information as added extras to the facts. This means that you have to allow for both of these situations. Recommendation 2: allow more time for interviews with employees.

Talking about poor performance is nigh on impossible. Or should I say having a Chinese manager to address it is almost impossible. You have to consider alternate methods to express lack of achievement. This means you have to say the person “did as expected” or “still has areas to achieve” rather than didn’t or failed to do something. I found a strong reluctance to measure performance with KPIs or the like as this would mean indicating failure. Much more was made of the relationship in the group. Recommendation 3: find a way to say failure without being negative in the choice of words.

When you have western expatriates or foreigners in a business they often gravitate towards the English speaking Chinese. Understandable I guess; but they really need to lose the halo effect with the English speakers. Recommendation 4: don’t get confused between English language capability and working competence.

Money is often said to make the world go round and it certainly does in China. Challenging any preconceptions you may have China is a thriving market economy fast charging toward capitalist ideals. For the average worker this means they want to have a family, buy a house, a car and live well. To do this they need money. To get the money they work and work and work. Now I will cover a little more on this in the next paragraph but the core need to maximize income means the Chinese will work as many hours as you give them. Recommendation 5: forget work life balance.

Even though the Chinese worker is willing to work all those hours it doesn’t mean it’s right. However they will strongly push back if you try to cut them because they see that as a cut in income. There are Labour laws in China regarding hours of work. These state that the maximum working hours are 44 per week with up to 36 additional overtime hours in a month. Now if the worker wants to work more and you have them available they will take them. Be aware that they soon start living within the means of the higher wage and won’t like any attempt to take it away. Recommendation 6: if you try to reduce working hours have an alternative way of making the money.

The assignment I was working on reflected a recent organizational structure change. Effectively a new management layer had been added in because of an expanding workforce. Now this is where Chinese and western ways align. Both like to work in silos and use management structures vertically rather than horizontally. However to get more lateral and horizontal interactions you need to play to the group mentality. Recommendation 7: to get people to work across silos create laterally connected groups e.g. Team leaders and middle managers.

I was working with a foreign company based in China. Their senior management were all expatriates. Now long term plans must surely be to integrate Chinese into the management team but in the meantime there has to be an appreciation that there are a significant number of individuals from outside the culture running the show. This means they are stressed living and working many miles from home and challenged to adapt to an alien way of life (to them of course). Recommendation 8: remember to consider the western workers who need the organization to support them too.

In China relationship and saving face are paramount to the workplace. However there is also a strong element of grade, seniority or superiority complex. By this I mean that only someone who is in a senior position to the person can tell them what to do. This means that any thoughts of empowerment culture or similarly peer working relationships will hit a stumbling block. But if you are able to differentiate roles then you have a chance of getting buy-in for this. Recommendation 9: clearly define roles within the team to express responsibilities and working expectations but be prepared to have push back on taking on any peer responsibilities.

My final comment relates to privacy, confidentiality and restricted communications. It is often necessary for discussions and communications to be kept within a number of people and not shared, or for employee information to be kept private. The required poster minimums are observed, which guarantees that you are covered under your state and federal compliance laws. However, in China there are no secrets, or any attempt to keep things such as wages, management discussions or any work related activity private. This leads me to my final comment. Recommendation 10: until you have established a solid and trusting relationship, never discuss anything with an employee and expect it to stay secret, even if you ask for it to do so.

I perhaps should have another recommendation about working in China, but I think this applies to work in any new and different place. Enjoy it! For many people working in Change, they are more open to differences and are therefore more positive about the new and finding out about what can be done differently. تصفيات اليورو 2024 Working abroad in a completely different country to normal is an ideal opportunity to test this and I can only speak from personal experience, but I would confirm that this is most definitely the case for me. So for anyone else out there, I recommend that you take any opportunity to work abroad and in so doing enjoy it for what it is and if it is China that you choose to go to, then I am sure these 10 tips will help you through the experience.

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Picturing the Change (Part1)

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I was recently reminded of the number of graphics and particularly things like change curves, charts and other line or bar charts. Any discussion about change would not be complete without referencing the Kubler-Ross grief curve and Johari windows and when I was considering how I explain change management to people who ask, I always like to reflect in stories and pictures – it just seems to hold better with people.

Kubler-Ross

If you are interested in knowing the background to Kubler-Ross I suggest you Google it, I am not going to take up a large chunk of this space but it’s well used to express the emotional energy experienced through a period of grief following a death or bereavement of some form. Actually, as I’m sure you already link, death or bereavement can equal loss which in turn can reflect a change – letting go of something that was and trying to take on something that is to be. I’ve slight modified the Kubler-Ross curve to reflect this.

KRCurve

As the change is established in the organization, different reactions occur – the same as the Kubler-Ross model. But I use this to reflect that the amount of energy expended on each reaction is reflective of the height on the curve and the transition from one reaction to the next is reflective of the move from change creation to full integration – from shock to commitment!

Johari Window

The other graphic I like to use is my own version of a Johari window. For those not so familiar with it, the Johari window comes from psychology and the willingness of people to understand what parts of their personality is accessible and open to others. hguhf h,k ghdk It is probably linked to my interest in Myers-Briggs typing that led me into looking more closely at this. دومينو اون لاين

If you replace personality with change then it works well as a descriptive model about the level of knowledge of that change within an organization. Consider that every stakeholder will sit somewhere on here and the challenge is enlarge the yellow coloured open sector, shrinking the blind and hidden blue shaded areas and thus shrink the unknown area. كيفيه لعب الطاوله In effect delivering knowledge about a change – and this relates to my favourite discussion on communications – when done successfully, will create more open zone content and less in the other zones.

Johari

What I personally find interesting here and I’ve tried to reflect it in my descriptors is how people sit in the “blind” and “hidden” change areas. When the change is known by the department, division or business managers but not the people within it, the “workers” are blind to it – they cannot see the change. If however the people that do the job are aware of a change, but have not passed on the information to departmental or project leaders, then they are keeping it hidden. Then of course the unknown quadrant occurs where nobody affected by the change knows about it! Which is where the hard work needs to take place!

I often use this Johari Change window to reflect the amount of communications needed. Those in the tope left corner need the least as they are better informed and those in the bottom right are in need of the most communication. There are multiple overlaps with stakeholder mapping and change impact analysis but it is a relatively simple for most people to understand.

 

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The When of Change Management (Part1)

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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!

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Reflecting on Symphonic Change Management

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Last year I did a short piece comparing change management to conducting an orchestra. I was fortunate to get some really positive and constructive feedback on this and really appreciated all the interest it generated. It was called Orchestral Symphonies in Change Management

Lately I have found myself using this analogy time and time again to describe what I do. I explain the work of the change management professional as the conductor of the orchestra and the light goes on with people. اللاعب روني But it got me thinking, is this because people don’t know what change management is, or is it because people have a preconceived idea of change management? تاريخ بايرن ميونخ

A quick straw poll in the office I work at gave me an indication. I asked the 10 guys n gals around me what they understand by change management. All of them thought it was some form of project management, and one person thought it was something to do with IT projects and controlling document change – I think that’s change control! But at least he’d thought a little before answering. So I explained that project management is a linear process and change management is more of a matrix. Explaining it as linking together education, communications, people, technology and environment elements of a change event, whether it is project related, process change or anything. Usually a bit of finance is thrown in for good measure too!

So, there’s a small glimmer of understanding showing here, but they are still not getting it! So the pitch now moves to people. I explain the need to invest in the people to get the buy in for change, make sure they are communicated to properly, trained and educated properly and the workspace and technology is all in place. That’s change management in a sentence! I now get a twinkle of understanding, head nods and smiles. But then, as I expect, the killer question comes back – surely I can’t do all of the communications, training, education, etc. etc.?

I now explain that it’s as much about facilitating change, through and with others as it is about making the change. Here it comes, I’m like the conductor of an orchestra, I know who to point to when and what to expect from each person, but I don’t play all the instruments myself, however I know what they all sound like and I know how they connect to produce great music.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” the light goes on and there’s hope for change managers everywhere once again! موقع بي بال

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Catching up with Kotter

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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.
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