Tools for a Change

We publish Tools for a Change, a free e-mail newsletter, every couple of weeks. Here are some selections from over the past ten years.

Stupid Refs and Change Management (7/14/08)

Jay Goldstein studies "those" parents at kids' sporting events that fit the acronym Tempestuous, Harried, Overwrought, Self-absorbed and Emotional. A parent who had been part of his study told him that he had once been one of "those" parents. But one day the referee didn't show and he was asked to take over. Suddenly, he was the victim of abuse from "those" parents. He said, "From that day on., I sit up by my car and read the paper, and glance up every now and then and watch the game. I am there for my child. Nothing more. Nothing less." (The Washington Post. A2, 7/14/08)

That item reminded me the power of getting people involved in making the tough decisions of running an organization. When that happens, people often see things differently. Getting people engaged in planning meetings is great, of course, but it doesn't compare to putting people in roles where they are now "the stupid referee." Just a thought.

If you have comments. I invite you to respond the post on my blog. Change Management News

Story Telling and Change Management (6/2/2008)

Making a case for change is tough. But, you knew that. One effective way of getting people's attention is with compelling stories. Stories grab us in ways that bullet points and graphs don't.

I recorded an interview with Lori Silverman, author of Wake Me When the Data is Over (a title that I love). I ask her how to use stories to making a case for change - and to keep the message alive throughout the life of a big project.

It's about 40 minutes long and you can listen to it in the Change Management Library section of my website. Just scroll down the page and you'll see it.

If you do listen and have questions, leave a note on my blog. Lori has promised to visit the blog and respond to your questions. The Blog

About the Blog

I post to my blog about three times a week, so if you enjoy reading this newsletter, you might enjoy the blog as well. And if you click RSS, you will be notified whenever I make a new post. Talk about excitement!

Change Management News

Change Management and Obesity (5/22/2008)

The article in The Washington Post (5/20/08) titled Fat School got me thinking. The story profiles a residential program for overweight children. The cost: $6250 a month with a four-month minimum stay.

Although the school presents high short-term success rates, and a few anecdotal reports of kids who kept the weight off for longer periods, there is no research to indicate that this approach does a better job than anything else in helping young people keep weight off. And at $6250 a month, it seems like that might be a good thing to do.

That got me thinking about change in organizations. It does strike me how easy it is to invest in something without any real indication that it works simply because the need is so great. Are parents willingness to invest so much in the lives and health of their children any different from leaders who spend millions on Business Process Reengineering when the success rate is so low? But, I'll save that rant for another day.

I am most interested in the lack of support for these kids after the program ends. As Anjali Jain, a pediatrician at Children's National Medical Center said in the article, "If their families don't change, [students] are going to be back to their old ways of doing things" once they return home.

What many changes fail to take into account is what it will take to support these changes once the program goes live.

For a couple more paragraphs on this, please visit my blog. And the blog will allow you to comment. Change Management News

About the Blog

I post to my blog about three times a week, so if you enjoy reading this newsletter, you might enjoy the blog as well. And if you click RSS, you will be notified whenever I make a new post. Talk about excitement!

Major Study of Corporate Change (5/8/2008)

I wanted to make sure you saw this important study about corporate change.

This was a major study of CEOs conducted by IBM. CNN reports: There has been a dramatic increase in the number of global business leaders who see important change ahead and "highlights how the ability to absorb and manage change is widening the gap between winners and losers in the global economy."

"Overall, 83 percent of surveyed CEOs expect substantial change in the future, an increase of 28 percent in just two years. However, CEOs report their ability to effectively manage change is increasing at a far slower pace." (Italics are mine.)

And then. . .

"Collectively, CEOs set their organization's ability to manage change 22 percentage points lower than their expectations for the level of change they will have to manage -- a 'change gap' that is widening." The phrase "a change gap that is widening" got my attention.

"The enterprise of the future accepts change as a permanent state in an organization. Those CEOs who demonstrate the capacity to manage major change know they can beat the competition by reaching new classes of customers, and making bold moves to shift business design around principles of global integration," said Ginni Rometty, senior vice president, IBM Global Business Services. "And it's clear that out-performers are distancing their enterprises from the competition based on their organizational capacity to take advantage of change."

You can read the full news feed at: CNNMoney

Change Management Training is a Waste of Money (5/5/2008)

(This is my response to a Human Resources blog that was promoting training as major support in change management. I decided to post it on my own blog as well.)

I agree that organizations need to be savvy about change management. But, change management training is a bad investment of money and time.

1. Training is a poor substitute for leadership. When training is used as the primary way of engaging people in change, you put the new initiative at risk. Training supports leadership, not the reverse. Without leadership people learn skills but lack a focus to apply them.

2. Training that is offered before it is needed is soon forgotten. And, even worse, people grow cynical. They begin to believe that they know all they need to know about managing change without ever having had to apply these ideas.

When training is linked directly to a new project as a way to give everyone a common language and set of tools, it can be a fine intervention. This is especially true if the training itself is embedded into the change management plan. A little education, a little application. For example, teach a model and then apply immediately to the project. Teach the next tool and then apply it right away. And that approach is a lot different from the typical change management class.

What Do You Have to Say (for Yourself)? My friend, Tom Stratton, suggested that I make it easy for people to post replies to my newsletter. Great idea, but since I don't know how to do that, I posted Change Management Training is a Waste of Money on my blog. . . . So, if you've got a reaction to what I wrote, please leave a response. Change Management News Thanks.

Saying the Wrong Thing (4/30/2008)

Joel Pett had a great cartoon in USA Today. People are at a counter in a diner talking about the presidential primaries in the US. One guy says, "I'm still undecided.. . .I'm waiting for the right irrelevant sound bite, out-of-context quote, or overblown distraction."

Every leader (and consultant) ought to post that cartoon where we can see it every day. (Ive got it on my desk.) It's a good reminder that in the midst of change people are looking for that "out-of-context quote" that can let them know that this change is really bad. It doesn't take much to turn people against a major change.

Change Management Books

In the last newsletter I asked for your recommendations for a book I could use in an MBA course I am designing on organizational change. . . .I expected to get a few titles. You know, the usual suspects. But, I was surprised to get such a long list of recommended books - and many of those were new to me. . . . And very few of the titles got more than one mention. . . . A couple of titles were sent in by the author's themselves. I put those books in the list because I like those books. . . One of my books was mentioned as well, but since I asked to not be included in the list, I won't include it here.

Some of you asked to see what people are recommending. Here's that list. And thank you so much.

Strategic Organizational Change, Auster, Wylie and Valente, Gung Ho!, Blanchard, Transitions, Bridges Managing Transitions, Bridges The Way of Transition, Bridges The Change Cycle, Brock and Salerno First Break All the Rules, Buckingham and Coffman Making Sense of Change Management, Cameron and Green The Courageous Follower, Chaleff Heart of Change Field Guide, Cohen (based on Kotter and Cohen's earlier book) Managing at the Speed of Change, Conner (new edition) (2 mentions) Organization Development and Change, Cummings and Worley The Handbook on Organization Development, Cummings Shifting Sands, Donahue The Change Monster, Duck Ten Tasks of Change, Evans The Six Secrets of Change, Fullan The Breakthrough Imperative, Gottfredson and Schaubert Social Intelligence, Goleman The Influencer, Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, and McMillan Thin Book of AI (appreciate Inquiry), Hammond The Change Handbook, Holman, Devane, and Cady Real Time Strategic Change, Jacobs Getting Your Organization to Change, Jaffee and Scott (2 mentions) Who Moved My Cheese, Johnson Leading Change, Kotter (6 mentioned this book) The Heart of Change, Kotter and Cohen (2 mentions) The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers, Kriegel and Brandt Communicating Change, Larkin Fish!, Lundin, Paul, and Christensen Intentional Revolutions, Nevis Surfing the Edge of Chaos, Pascale, Milleman, and Gioja Deep Change, Quinn What Great Leaders Do!, Secretan The Fifth Discipline, Senge Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over, Silverman Aftershock, Woodward and Bucholz

That's all for now. I've got a lot of reading to do.

25% Improvement Just to Stay in the Game (4/10/2008)

Under the demanding leadership of Patrick O'Connell, The Inn at Little Washington (that's Washington, Virginia) continues to be one of the finest restaurants in the United States.

"When guests stop in to thank him and rave that their meal was "as good as ever." O'Connell says he often thinks to himself: Actually, it's 25 percent better than it was the last time. 'Constantly improving is the only way to make sure they think it's just as good as before.' " (The Washington Post 4/9/08)

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Do You Know of a Good Book?

I could use your advice. I am preparing to design an MBA course on change management and I am looking for a book to use as the basic text. Is there a book that you would recommend? . . . (By the way, I will be inflicting one of my own books on the unsuspecting class, so no need for you to recommend me to me :) Thanks for your help.

New on the Blog

Here some recent posts: What Leaders of Change Can Learn From Goalies A response to the post on The Right Frame of Mind And my nod to someone else's blog post on Lean production.

I hope you'll take a look. Change Management News

The Right Frame of Mind (3/25/2008)

According to The Economist, Ara Norenzayan "conducted experiments using what is known as the dictator game. . . .Participants receive a sum of money - Dr. Norenzayan set it at $10 - and are asked if they would like to share it with another player." In the basic version of this old game, people tend to keep most of the money for themselves. He "tweaked the game by introducing the idea of God." Half the subjects unscrambled sentences containing religious words such as God, spirit, divine and so forth prior to playing the dictator game. The players who were primed with so-called religious terms gave $4.22 on average whereas other players left $1.84. (The Economist March 22, 2008.) 

The experiment described above only asked people to unscramble sentences. No fanfares, extolling, or preaching. So please note that I am not suggesting motivational speakers or tired old do-it-for-the-Gipper bromides that executives tend to trot out from time to time.

The designers of FutureSearch (a change process that involves a fairly large number of people) purposely begin events the night before any "real work" takes place. They believe, as I do, that just starting the event, gets people thinking about the work at hand. So by the time the real work begins, people have already chewed on the ideas. . . . What if we added something akin to unscrambling sentences to an introductory meeting? (I am not suggesting that we actually unscramble sentences, but something that might serve the same end.) Could something this simple help get people focused on the spirit needed to support the intense work of change?

Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is (3/14/2008)

Dean Karlan, an economist at Yale, found that people are more likely to act in their own self-interest if they sign a contract. And - they are significantly more likely to meet their goals if they could lose something of value if they failed. Karlan and some colleagues ran an experiment where people who wanted to quit smoking signed an agreement that they would lose money if they failed a urine test the end of the experiment. . . . Those who signed the commitment paper were about 30 percent more likely to pass the test than the control group or a group that just received educational materials. The lesson: Many of us work harder to avoid losing than to gain something.

Based on this, Karlan and friends started a free websiteStickk.com where you can make a commitment, pledge money to a charity if you fail, choose a referee to judge if you met your goals, and join a virtual support group.

I think this may have something to teach us about leading change. I'm not talking about inflicting punishment on others. So put away your club, Atilla. But I do think that the notion of 1. voluntarily making public commitments, 2. adding consequences to failure, 3. and having like-minded people to talk to just might make a difference.

This has my attention today. I'm thinking about it. And, as always, I welcome your thoughts.

Want to know more: The original report appeared on National Public Radio. And you can read Karlan's working paper on smoking cessation at: Put Your Money Where Your Butt Is

This is Our Plan -- But It's Wrong (2/2008)

Dan Swanson, a marketing expert, said he has put together pitches for hundred of venture capitalists and investment bankers. And he always tells them, “This is our best shot at it --  but we know it’s wrong, we just don’t know where it’s wrong, and we are going to change it as we go along.” (from Nitro Marketing Blueprint training.)

Imagine if a leader presented a plan for a big organizational change in that manner -- and then invited people to offer improvements all along the way.  What a difference that could make.

Simply acknowledging what everyone knows to be true (but isn’t allowed to say out loud) could be a wonderful invitation for people to engage in the process of change.  

Selling Chrysler (5/23/07)

After the news that Daimler sold Chrysler at fire sale prices, I went back to Jeffrey Pfeffer’s column in Business 2.0 (1/07) titled The Agony of Victory. He describes how Chrysler virtually invented the mini-van in the 1980s. (And they made a ton of money from it.) But then along came SUVs, new minivan competitors, and hikes in gas prices, and here sat Chrysler with plants set up to build mini-vans.

He calls this “the competency trap”. Here’s what he says, “Organizations try things. If what they do succeeds, they “learn” that what they’ve done breeds success. So they persist, becoming ever more focused in what they do, and ever more specialized in the skills they acquire.”

The struggle between what’s familiar and innovation seem to make many of us opt for what we already know how to do – even when conditions are changing.

Pfeffer doesn’t have an answer and neither do I. Except that his column got me to step back and look at my own business. Could I depend on the things that have allowed me to be in business for almost thirty years to help me to keep the lights on in the coming years? It makes a fella think.

Toyota Passes GM (5/07)

Toyota just surpassed GM in cars sold in the US over the past quarter. That news made me think of NUMMI.

After US automakers took a beating from Japanese imports in the 1970s, GM teamed with Toyota to create a wildly successful joint venture called NUMMI. It combined Toyota’s legendary attention to quality with deep employee involvement. Not only was it a model of good manufacturing, it was a model of how management and labor could work together.

I recall talking with a couple of GM managers who told me that a team had gone out to California to study the NUMMI plant to see what they could learn. All they could see were a few relatively minor technological innovations. They missed one of the most important reasons why NUMMI worked so well – the people.

NUMMI is still making cars and trucks, but it seems that GM never learned the lessons from this joint-venture. And today, former president of GM, Charles Wilson, could never get away with saying “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.”

I got to wondering: Am I like those GM engineers? What am I missing when I attempt to learn about what makes businesses work well? To paraphrase William James, am I thinking or just rearranging my prejudices? Do I have the capacity to really see what’s going on? Perhaps you’ll consider asking the same question of yourselves. It could make a difference.

What We Can Learn from a Governor (8/07)

Here’s a small tidbit I heard on the news. When Ted Strickland took over as Governor of Ohio he moved the office from a high rise into the state house. Because he was now hanging out near where members of the Ohio Assembly met, he got to know people. One member of the assembly said that he had spent more time with Strickland in the past few months than he had with the former governor over a four year period. And Strickland was able to get unanimous support for his budget. Coincidence, I don’t think so.

How often to we separate ourselves from the people we want to influence? Different building, different floors, different cities, different countries, and gatekeepers who keep others at bay.

Back Pain and Organizational Change (2/02)

In my work on resistance, I have been interested in brain research that focuses on fear, stress, pain, etc. I believe that area of study (neuroscience) holds important keys to unlocking Level 2 and Level 3 resistance. I just read an article that I think may have application to our work in organizations. By the way, I do realize that this research is a bit of a stretch, but interesting, nonetheless.

In “A Comforting Spouse Could Turn Out to Be a Real Pain,” Robert Lee Hotz, writes, “By eavesdropping on electrical activity in the most private precincts of the mind, researchers investigating the effects of chronic pain discovered that a husband or wife can make the ache feel three times worse simply by being in the room. (Los Angeles Times 11/4/02.)

Researchers found that the pain subsided when the spouse left the room!

“Surprisingly, perhaps, it was the most solicitous husbands and wives -- those who clucked most lovingly over the spouses' discomfort -- who triggered the pain. The more the husbands or wives dwelt on their partner's pain, the worse it felt, the neural monitors showed.”

Herta Flor, University of Heidelberg's Central Institute of Mental Health, who led the study team said, “We found basically that when their spouses were in the room, they had an almost three-fold increase in their response to pain. These patients also showed more overt signs of feeling pain, such as moaning.” 
Spouses who stayed in the room but offered distractions or not focusing too heavily on the pain helped alleviate pain.

So what’s this got to do with our work in organizations? On one hand, I’m not sure if it does. On the other hand, it might open a door to understanding dynamics at play in organizations. For example: 

Perhaps when people are in pain due to major changes in the organization, spending time just listening and expressing sympathy, may make matters worse. Have you ever been in one of those team building activities where people just spilled their guts and others sat around acting as if they cared? My experience has been that they are pretty dreadful and often make matters worse.

However, I think that listening for the purpose of getting at what’s wrong so you can try to do something to help the situation (like get medical attention), is far different than just being solicitous with comments like, “I feel your pain.”

I believe that listening just to demonstrate empathy has a short shelf life. However listening with a willingness to be influenced by what we hear and do something based on that information is a very different type of listening. I explored listening with a willingness to be changed in an interview with Alan Alda in Why Don’t You Want What I Want?

Malcolm Baldrige Award and Stock Performance (3/9/99)

The "Baldrige Index," a fictitious stock fund comprised of U.S. companies that have received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, has once again outperformed the Standard & Poor's 500 for a fifth year by more than 200 percent.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) "invested" a hypothetical $1,000 in each of the six whole company winners - ADAC Laboratories, Eastman Chemical Co., Federal Express Corp., Motorola Inc. and Solectron Corp. (1991 and 1997 winner.) The investments were tracked from the month following the announcement through December 1998.

Thanks to the Association for Quality and Participation’s e-zine for this piece. By the way, AQP’s Spring conference will be in Las Vegas the end of this month. If you’re interested in seeing how the power of employee involvement can build strong quality processes in organizations, I urge you to attend. I go just about every year. I’ll be glad to make sure you get details if you’re interested.

Study of Change Management Practices Around the World (9/2/05)

I just read an impressive study on change management titled “Taking Stock: a Survey on the Practice and Future of Change Management.” I think the study will be of particular interest to people who (in Yogi Berra’s terms) go for “deep depth.” I know some managers and executives who like to explore the theory and practice of change management, but the primary audience will be consultants who spend a significant amount of time working on change management projects.

One section explores survey results. People responded from around the world. A few items:
+ Even though change leaders often trumpet the transformational possibilities of thee major projects, only 15 percent of respondents saw any lasting transformational change. 
+  Ownership and support of top-level management is the single most important factor in the success of change. (In my experience, change projects get delegated down a level or two very quickly, and they die. When the top person is a real champion, the success rate goes up.)
+  Senior level leaders believe that people understand the practice of sound change management. People below them don’t have a clue.
+  51 percent said they “had seen many change management initiatives” fail.
+  94 percent of respondents said they personally benefited from learning change management methods.
+ Change management has moved from being just the work of organization development practitioners, and out into line operations. (That suggests to me that technical and financial professionals are beginning to see the benefits of managing change well. It’s not just the consultants who are promoting change management these days.)
+  Sound change management theory and practice seems to cross cultural boundaries. Although the practice of change management initially developed in the US and Western Europe, it seems to have broad applicability around the globe.

Another section gives pithy one-page descriptions of a range of change management methods used by people who responded to the survey. These short descriptions range from personality theories to complex large system interventions to theoretical models that help explain the dynamics of change. These short descriptions give a fine overview of the range of thinking and practice in the area. 

The final section explores a number of possible scenarios that could influence how we approach change management.

Prior to receiving a copy of the report, I had no knowledge of the firm that put it together and I have no financial stake in their success. However, I do feel I have a stake in helping people learn about managing change in organizations, and this report significantly adds to our knowledge of the field. Bravo to the authors.

Chris Rock on Getting Ideas Across (1/1/08)

Entertainers know a lot about how to grab an audience’s attention and hold it – and get invited back. The great comedian, Chris Rock, has some good advice for those of us who want to get our ideas across – and get invited back. 

“When. . .  you don’t do well, you’re basically hearing ‘No’ How are you going to approach this ‘no’? Are you going to respect it and put the blame on yourself and improve who you are, or are you going to blame the audience like an idiot?” He goes on to say, “It’s never their fault. No matter how late it is, no matter how much they did or didn’t drink, no matter what the sound system is like, no matter how hot the building is  or how cold the building is, it ain’t the crowd’s fault.” (New York Times 12/28/07)

As we enter this New Year filled with grand plans, we are certain to meet resistance to our brilliant ideas somewhere along the way. As Chris Rock suggests, we’ve got a choice: we can blame them or we can take responsibility for things going wrong. Since we are the ones who want something, taking responsibility for how things are going is great starting point. It gives us a better chance of doing it better next time. It could be timing, how we presented the idea, the wrong audience for our appeal, it could even be a bad idea! Whatever. Blaming others will only give us that self-righteous glow for just so long, and then we’re left with a idea lying dead on the floor.

On the cheery note – Happy New Year. . 

Question From a Reader (1/08)

A reader of Tools for Change shared this concern with me: 

“The biggest challenge I face is supporting our business to change its culture around customer service. The risk is that if we don’t, our competition will continue to eat our market share.”

It’s the question of why before how. You’ve already decided on the how – you said that need to improve customer service in order to regain market share. And you may be right. But it sounds like your organization is stuck on why. People don’t see why you are talking about changing. And people are not interested in following your how (your ideas and plans) until they fully grasp why something new is needed.

Without a deep understanding of why, you’ll probably get reluctance and resistance. And good customer service is not built on a foundation of people who are angry at their employers.

Rather than trying to sell people on customer service, take a step back. Ask yourself, what makes you so certain that poor customer service is what’s eating away at your market share? What evidence do you have that this situation could be critical? I’ll guess that you’ve got some pretty compelling answers to that question.  Now ask yourself, do people throughout the organization see things this way? I’ll bet they don’t.

If I’m right, then your task is to make a compelling case for change. Don’t just give people the tired old PowerPoint presentation, but consider how you can get the message across in ways that grab people emotionally. For example, videos of real customers talking about why they have left your company. Research that shows a correlation between your drop in customer service scores and market share. These are off the top of my head. You need to think of things that make sense for your organization.

Good luck.  

Appreciative Inquiry (11/11/98)

My interest in resistance to change runs deep, and I am especially interested in strategies that avoid (or at least reduce) resistance before it occurs. You probably know that I am a fan of Appreciative Inquiry. It gets people involved in planning change in a unique way. It focuses on what’s going right as a way to build a foundation for moving toward something new. While the approach doesn’t dismiss problems, it spends far more time learning from what’s already working well. When people move toward something compelling in a way that respects past accomplishments, the chance for commitment and sustainability is far greater than approaches that demand people give up the old ways and build from scratch.

Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry, by Charles Elliott, (IISD. Winnipeg. 1999.) is a very good book on the subject. Part I explores the theoretical underpinning, part II shows how to run the process, and Part III offers case studies.  The cases run from its use in African villages to one written by John Carter and Pam Johnson involving one of the world’s largest accounting firms. Highly recommended.

The Jack Welch Way (4/2000)

The GE Way Fieldbook by Robert Slater is a practical guide to the way Jack Welch (and GE’s leaders) run the company. It shows how they integrate ideas like six sigma into their corporate culture.

Many organizations give lip service to values statements. GE works to align values with action. Take “Have a passion for excellence and hate bureaucracy.” Slater describes how that value is reinforced in many ways. GE’s famed Work-out process is just one example of how the company cuts through bureaucracy to get at the best ideas. (This book gives the clearest description I’ve seen of how to use the Work-out process.)

I believe Jack Welch has been a powerful force for the health of GE. However, Slater is a bit too reverential toward him. I wish he had explored some of the other sides to the story. What are his blind spots? Are there places where values and action don’t match? When do these approaches fail? And then what do they do?

The book is filled with practical advice -- including self-assessment tools – which help the reader see how the GE approach might work in his/her organization.

A Lesson from Emerging Markets (7/02)

Good governance pays! In a timely study conducted by McKinsey, companies emerging markets that adhere to good governance practices do better in the marketplace. And the reward for good governance is high. “By moving from worst to best in corporate governance, companies in our sample could expect, on average, to experience roughly a 10 to 12 percent increase in their market valuation – a result underscoring the importance investors attach to these attributes.”

Human Resources Tools (12/2000)

I just came across a fairly new website that I thought might interest you. www.hr.com includes articles and resources in many areas related to Human Resources: Compensation and Benefits, HR Information Systems, HR Management, Labor Relations, Legal, Organizational Development, Staffing, Training & Development.

This month, the site features an interview with Jay Galbraith talking about HR’s role in creating a global organization. In the archives is an interview with Jeffrey Pfeffer whose work linking sound HR practices to bottom-line results is the strongest argument I have ever seen on why organizations should pay attention to the human equation.