Saturday, May 27, 2017

Five Change Insight

People need to be developed and grown so the positive energy can flow and collective human capabilities can really be transformed.


The speed of business change is accelerating, but more than two-thirds of change management effort fails to achieve the expected result, To keep up with today's change and market disruption requires agility, speed, and resourcefulness. That requires the right people- the change champions, effective processes, and productive tools well tuned to make it happen. Here are five change principles & insight.

Change is simply a shift of the “Old Way - Chaos - New Way” to do things: Change is tough, there are full of pitfalls on the way, such as change fatigue, change inertia, change resistance, it is simply so hard to get out of the comfort zone for many people., etc. Hence, it’s important to follow the well-planned scenario with logic steps to manage changes. Break down the change process into phases and communicate each phase to employees on time. Creating a desire for change (usually through WIIFM - "What's In It For Me") is part of change management. During the whole process, make sure that all staff is aware of the plan/process, timely updated, and responsible for something. Make each individual feel responsible for the success of the plan, engage them actively and make sure that your new proposal solves their current problems, and provide a better working environment. Change cannot be just another thing that needs to be accomplished. It has to be woven into communication, process, and action of the organization. Make your plan flexible and implement changes based on staff feedback. Making changes should be a fun and innovative journey, not just a stressful one-time project. Most of the organizations would like to change their business processes, as long as individuals know how they will benefit personally from the change in the process. This is particularly important in those creative industries or organizations that have extensive innovative product development regimes. It would follow that developing creativity and building changeability would be more welcome in these areas. Change for better, change is simply a shift of the "old way-chaos-new way" to do things.

To make change sustain, the important thing is “end-to-end” performance: In today's work environment, change indeed is difficult to measure unless all parties involved in the change take ownership of the change and see why and what the change is about. Change impact analysis and business readiness are two key processes that need to conduct to give a person a glimpse of what to measure. Measuring change involves first accurately identifying where you are now. Then, clearly identifying where you want to be once the change is complete. Both require the necessity to be brutally honest and to establish clear, understandable, and easily calculable metrics. Too often transformational change is acted on the basis of improving one part of an organization at the expense of other parts of the organization, the main reason is that up to this point in time, most leaders have been silo managers and don't really have the business skills or personality traits to lead transformation and change. To make change sustain, the important thing is "end-to-end" performance. The metrics need to be SMART, so people can see what the outcome will look like throughout their transition. Second, there should be a consideration for a balanced scorecard that measures the progress you want to achieve during the change transition, this keeps people focused. To make change sustain, it is important to manage end-to-end performance, including both a series of in-process measures and a set of final, desired outcome, measures will be the appropriate ones.

Structure and behavior are two elements co-working in every organism in nature and in every system designed by human culture: Flatter structures will help to speed up organizational responses to changing business dynamics. The goal for optimized organizational design is to get the mass collaboration, innovation through less hierarchy, cross-functional insight and adopt the robust processes designed for improving responsiveness and harnessing communication. So part of the change management journey is to prepare people for the new structures and to recognize increasing collective consciousness is a crucial step, in order to master the change and drive the seamless digital transformation. As organizational design researchers well put, the key diagnostics whether the organization design is fit or not can be summed up in two simple questions: “Are you big enough for your job?” and “Is your job big enough for you?” If the answer to both is “yes” throughout the organization, then the business is in the flow state.

Look at resistance to change as a source of energy and where there is energy there is still passion and potential: Some say, change is not a problem, the primary reason for change failure is resistance to change while the second reason is the inability of leaders to deal with resistance. Animate the transformation and manage transformation initiatives. Change is inevitable, and the only differences are the reasons and goals behind the change and its scope and depth/breadth (Why the change, what you need to accomplish, what does it consist of and what does it impact).  Two types of resistances are expected: Personal and structural, and both need to be addressed effectively and efficiently. Build up a positive emotional environment, foster collaborative relationships, communicate relentlessly, cool down stressed people before they stress others, be there at the crossroad of the transformation to make sure information and interaction flow in every direction, build up trust by bonding people around clear and benevolent intentions. Overall, good anticipation in planning is key for a smoother execution, while regular updates and plan adjustments will enhance your chances of success. If someone is "resisting" change, what's that about? At a minimum, they need to be heard and understood - which removes some of the perceived resistance. The person labeled a resistor may even share the same purpose as the sponsors: It is wise to look for a "positive intent" behind a "resistor," Better yet, engage people in the design of change solutions so that issues can be surfaced and addressed early.  

One of the good reasons for the change is to keep the organization fit, and a fitting business has better changeability and higher agility as well. “organizational fit means "incluversity." “Fit” doesn't mean that everyone needs to have the same thought process, the same personalities, the same preferences, or the same experiences. Indeed, the best-fit mind means “think differently,” the best fit team has complementary skills and capabilities, and the best-fit organization has differentiated competency to achieve a high-performing result. Fitting” doesn’t take the cookie cutting approach, The right fit people are the ones who possess the right mind with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors necessary to move your business in the direction it needs to go; to help realize the vision and values of the organization, they are fit for changes, and keep innovating and transforming the business for the long-term prosperity. People need to be developed and grown so the positive energy can flow and collective human capabilities can really be transformed. Where you want to look for 'fit' is in relation to the values you want to build or maintain within your team, and the kinds of behaviors that you would expect to see as a result of, or in alignment with, those values.

It is nevertheless true that the change itself has become unpredictable and evolutionary, as compared to treading through carefully laid down road-map. Change is the journey and ongoing capability to keep the business dynamic and organization reaching its maturity.






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