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Managing Change

Managing change is more important today than ever before. The reason is that we are living in exponential times. Change is happening faster and faster and we have to adapt more often and much quicker than in the past. It’s almost as if the periods between changes are getting shorter and shorter.

To understand this, have a look at this video clip:

With most people and companies it’s change upon change upon change.

One of the leaders that I’ve worked with described this beautifully. She mentioned that it feels like she is flying a plane and constantly have to re-build and update the plane while she is in the air.

During change, people are required to do things differently and when you do things differently, you are forced out of your comfort zone.

So why do so many people resist change? When you are out of your comfort zone, you are in another zone which is...well, uncomfortable, and people don’t like being uncomfortable.

Change is as much part of life as breathing. Nobody can avoid it. Whether it’s on a personal, relationship or business level, it will happen. It forms part of the natural cycle of life.

The effects that change has on employee motivation is significant, and also one of the main reasons why managing change is so important for employee motivation. Some of the effects that I’ve seen with companies in change are:

Uncertainty

Loss of identity

Mistrust

Self preservation

Power struggles

Drop in Productivity

Drop in teaming

Bailing out

Loss of talent

Family repercussions

Low morale

Low Commitment

You don’t have to be a genius to see how these effects will influence employee motivation.

The Nature Of Change

I believe that you need to understand the nature of change, before you can become effective at managing change...so let’s have a look at the nature of change

Without change, we die. In short change equals growth.

George Land, a systems thinker and biologist developed the concept of the growth curve. It describes the nature of change and growth.

He stated that all organisms are programmed to grow and will go through phases called the Growth Curve where certain behaviors, ideas and feelings are predictable.

This term “organism” can be applied to anything, from a single cell organism, individuals, relationships or teams and organizations

Let’s take organizations and look at these phases

Phase 1: The Formative Stage

This is the start-up stage of the company. The purpose here is to get out of this stage ASAP. This is times of high energy where everyone talks to everyone, share ideas and communicate openly.

The customer is King at this stage and everything revolve around keeping the customer happy.

Phase 2: The Normative Stage

This is where the organization establishes a stable customer base. There are replicable processes and products and a routine gets established.

Divisions with different functions are formed and if it’s done correctly, this is a stage of rapid growth.

The typical characteristics of this stage are:

Develop a stable customer base

Replicable processes/products

Routine gets established

Begin to get divisions and set functions

The organization makes lots of money

Confidence

Rewarding

Systems and structure are in place

Where is the trust in phase 2? In the systems, processes and structures.

What is the goal here? Keep the systems going and make it more effective.

What are communications like? In a silo. People do their own thing, communicate and share ideas less. E-mails and voice mail become the norm instead of one-on-one communications face to face.

Late Phase 2

Then comes late phase 2 and employee motivation goes down, with the following characteristics:

Focus and energy becomes internal.

Self-protection.

Boring and complacent.

Competition turns internal against other divisions for the available resources.

Lose focus on the customer and why the organization exists in the first place.

Become more bureaucratic and concerned about who reports to whom, rather than focusing on the customer.

At the end of Phase 2, the organization hits the metaphoric Wall.

The Wall

The Wall looks different for different organizations, but it usually represents a crisis looming where the organization must change itself. This can be caused by

Loss of business.

Competition doing something different or better.

Poor service.

Misreading the market.

Basically it represent a time where the organization can’t carry on doing business the way they did. Most of the time it is because the external environment changed.

The Back to Basics Bump

As the organization sees the wall coming, it goes through a period called the “back to basics bump” This is where it believes it can avoid the Wall, by restructuring, re-engineering or changing by moving people or stuff around. Sometimes, doing this can bring the organization under the illusion that it is managing change.

The organization believes it doesn’t need to change and making adjustments will avoid them hitting the wall.

Here is an article on why people resist change.

This “back to basics bump” could last a few months or a few years. But eventually it WILL hit the Wall.

Hitting the Wall is a crisis for organizations (consciously or unconsciously) and a choice occurs:

Do what they've always done and eventually fade out and die.

It can re-invent themselves and begin to grow again.

This re-invention can be a new product or division.

Read this article to understand the three ways people and organizations deal with change.

This article will give you an experiential activity that simulates a changing environment.

Phase 3. Re-Invention.

During re-invention, an organization recreates, renews and re-design what it want its future to look like. Managing change effectively is vitally important during this stage.

Chaos occurs, because the organization is trying to hold on to what works – the systems, structures, processes and procedure that makes them successful – while re-inventing things that no longer works. The organization needs to become good at managing change

The characteristics of this phase are:

It’s very uncomfortable.

Keep what’s working of Phase 1 and 2.

Lot’s of courage and creativity.

Risk-taking to develop and renew.

Focus back on the customer and the marketplace…and creating what they ask for.

Appropriate risk-taking within structures.

Common purpose for teams and companies.

High level of communication.

High level of support, trust and accountability.

Energy is focused on solving problems, not complaining about them.

Shared vision.

The Right Mindset for Re-invention and Managing Change

The most important thing for re-invention is to have the right mindset. Without that you will struggle in managing change.

You need to see change as an adventure, not this big obstacle that you need to overcome.

In any adventure, we have a choice. We can try to simply SURVIVE it – clinging to the hope we will get to the end unscathed or….

We can THRIVE, allowing the adventure to grow us in ways we could not have imagined when we began.

Read this article on practical steps to implement change management that sticks.

If you want me to help you with Managing Change, read more about my Change Management Program, Thriving In Permanent White-Water here

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