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change management is a very broad
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discipline that encompasses a lot of
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different things a lot of different work
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streams of strategies that you can be
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using to deploy change in your
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organization however there's a way to
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simplify it and what I want to do today
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is talk about the five steps most
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important steps to make your change
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initiatives more
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successful my name is Eric Kimberling
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and I'm the CEO of third stage
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Consulting we're an independent
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consulting firm that helps clients
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throughout the world reached their third
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stage of digital transformation success
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and one of the service offerings we
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provide to our clients is change
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management we help clients going through
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digital and business Transformations we
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help them with the change management
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initiatives and we help ensure that
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they're managing the change initiatives
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to be successful and often times what we
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find is organizations and people in
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general are overwhelmed by change
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management they don't understand what it
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means they get confused by all the
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different tactics that are out there the
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different training courses so what I
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want to do today is boil change
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management down to five simple steps and
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the five most important steps that you
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can take to make your change initiatives
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more successful now if you're looking
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for a deeper dive into change management
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and some tactics and strategies that
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we've seen work with our clients I
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encourage you to read our guide to
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organizational change management it's a
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guy that contains a number of best
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practices and lessons we've learned from
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helping clients through their digital
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Transformations and the change
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components of their digital
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Transformations you can read that guide
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by scanning the QR code in front of you
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or using the links
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below
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now the first of these five steps in
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deploying a change strategy is to
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conduct a change Readiness assessment
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and a lot of organizations tend to think
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that yes we're ready for change we know
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that we need to change so there's no
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point in doing a change Readiness
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assessment a change Readiness assessment
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is not meant to determine whether or not
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you're ready it's determine how ready
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you are and more importantly to
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anticipate where the potential pockets
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of resistance might come as you go
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through a digital transformation so you
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think about the things that are going to
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entail change in your organization
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things like process improvements
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organizational restructuring certainly
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new tools and systems that you might
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start to use and you combine that with
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the culture of your organization and
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past change history and your management
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style leadership style all the different
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things that make you who you are and
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inevitably those things all combin to
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create some sort of unintended
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resistance to change and the key with
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the change Readiness assessment is to
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dive into and proactively address what
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the potential resistance to change is
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going to be so a way to reframe the
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question is not to ask yourself whether
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or not people will resist change but to
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ask yourself how will people resist
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change how severe will that resistance
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be and what will the root causes of that
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resistance be no matter how well-
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intended your people are which I have no
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doubt they are well-intended they are
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going to resist change not because
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they're bad people or they're trying to
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sabotage the project but because you're
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imposing change that's going to create
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fear uncertainty and doubt within their
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personal lives so the key is to
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recognize and understand that and do a
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change change Readiness assessment to
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dive into that and anticipate where
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those sources of resistance might come
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from now when we do change Readiness
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assessments for organizations both at
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the beginning of a project but also
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ongoing throughout a transformation
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we'll start with a two-prong change
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Readiness approach one is an online
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Anonymous tool that we deploy to people
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to capture quantitative information and
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quantitative data points around the
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culture of the organization the
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management style the collaboration style
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the communication style all the things
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that tell us who the organization is and
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allows us to understand where the dark
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sides might be and the pockets of
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resistance might be the second prong
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that we deploy is a qualitative series
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of focus groups where we dive deeper
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into an understanding of the culture of
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the organization and some more of the
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qualitative nuances of the organization
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so that we can combine those qualitative
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and quantitative data sets to anticipate
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and mitigate those potential sources of
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resistance so this change Readiness
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assessment is one of the first steps if
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not the first step that you should take
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in a change management initiative to
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ensure that you understand the lay of
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the land so you can create a change
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strategy that best aligns with and
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addresses those things that you've
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identified in the
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[Music]
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assessment it's very difficult if not
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impossible for a digital transformation
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to succeed if your executives are not
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aligned and if your overall organization
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is not aligned when I talk about
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alignment you may wonder what does that
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mean what does it mean to be aligned
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well essentially it means to be on the
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same page to be rowing in the same
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direction to have the same vision have
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the same understanding of where we're
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going as an organization now every
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organization has levels of misalignment
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as you grow and as you add people and
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you bring in different personalities
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from the outside it's inevitable that
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the organization is going to become
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somewhat misaligned so that's the
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reality of a growing organization
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especially a larger more complex
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organization so while we may not be able
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to change that reality what we can do is
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understand where the executives and the
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overall organization is not aligned and
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work to get alignment on where the
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organization is headed so let's just use
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as an example a case study from a recent
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client of ours we have a client that
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grew very aggressively through mergers
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and Acquisitions they acquired over 40
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different companies over the course of
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less than five years and they came to us
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and said hey we want some help coming up
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with a digital strategy and executing a
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digital strategy that allows us to
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create a common set of business
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processes a common operating model a
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shared services model and a way to
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really create one company and take these
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40 different companies and start acting
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like one global company sounds simple
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enough and straightforward enough but
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when it came to the details of what
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exactly that meant and some of the tough
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decisions that needed to be made around
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what it means to look like a single
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company in a common operating model
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that's where the executives disagreed
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they couldn't agree on what exactly that
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broad statement meant to act like one
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company and until they agreed on that
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they weren't able to successfully move
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forward with the transformation and if
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you think about it if the executives
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aren't aligned on what the overall
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vision and the strategy is going to be
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the rest of the organization is not
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going to be aligned either so it's very
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important that you spend time working
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with Executives to ensure that they get
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aligned and for more information and
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more details on how we approach
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executive alignment I encourage you to
00:06:13
check out this deep dive video on my
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YouTube channel that dives into that
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topic in a little bit more detail gives
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you a framework for how you might deploy
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that within your
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organization the third and most
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important step in a change strategy is
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to do a change impact assessment and a
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change impact assessment is essentially
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looking at where you are today where
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you're headed in the future or where you
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plan to be in the future with your
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change initiative and identifying all
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the gaps and the differences between
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current state and future State and we
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need to do that not just at a global
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macro level but also at an individual
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Department individual business unit and
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in some cases even individual People
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level so in other words if I'm an
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employee within an organization going
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through a change I need to understand
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what exactly this means to me in my job
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I care to some degree about what it
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means to the overall organization even
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if I'm on board with why we're going
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through the change I can't be on board
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with it fully until I understand what
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the change means to me and until I'm
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comfortable with that change so the
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point of the change impact assessment is
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to really identify and fine-tune and get
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down to a micro level of how the changes
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are going to impact the organization so
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that we can start to work through those
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changes with people and the other beauty
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of doing a change impact assessment is
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that it brings some of the those change
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freakout moments earlier in the project
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in other words we're not waiting until
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we get to classroom Based training where
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we're training people on how to use a
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new system we're not waiting until them
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to Spring a bunch of changes on them and
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surprise them with a bunch of changes to
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their jobs that stuff's already been
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worked through earlier in the process
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through these change impact assessments
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the sooner we do the change impact
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assessment the sooner we're able to work
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through that communication and that sort
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of pre-training to help people
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understand how their roles and
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responsibilities are going to change and
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making sure we get on the same same page
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with that and you have to give people a
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chance to freak out because they will
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freak out when they learn that they're
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going to lose their spreadsheet or
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they're going to materially change their
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jobs or AI is going to automate part of
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their jobs so really understanding that
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impact and articulating that impact is
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very important now a word of warning
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here is a lot of organizations and
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project teams tend to overlook this step
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because they think they just need to
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focus on the future state they're so
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focused on designing the new processes
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and the new technologies the software
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vendor is pushing hard to deploy new
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technologies within the organization and
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they Overlook the reality of the human
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dimension of change and the change
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impact assessment is critical and it's a
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key foundational aspect of Downstream
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change management
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[Music]
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activities when we look at how
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disruptive technology can be and how
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much of a GameChanger technology can be
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to organizations today we have to
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recognize that there's a dark side to
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that gamechanging ability of technology
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and when I say there's a dark side I
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mean that it affects humans more than it
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ever has has in the past people's jobs
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are going to change the way they do
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their jobs are going to change all these
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are things that affect us as humans and
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these are the things that we need to
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work through as part of our change
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strategy so just to give you an example
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here if we say that we're going to
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deploy artificial intelligence tools to
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automate a certain percentage of my job
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what I need to know is what am I going
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to do with that part of my job that is
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now automated it's not enough to tell me
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that you're going to automate 30 or 40%
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of my job with AI tools that make my job
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easier but the reality is that I'm going
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to panic a little bit when you tell me
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that you're going to automate 30 to 40%
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of my job because what am I going to do
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are you going to get rid of my job are
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you going to replace me with someone
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else are you now not going to Value me
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as much because you don't rely on my
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heroics the same way you may have in the
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past to work through some of these
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processing efficiencies that we've
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always had those are the types of things
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in the human psychology that need to be
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understood when you're going through a
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digital transformation like this and so
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what we need to do is not just say Eric
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we're going to automate 30% of your job
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and make 30% of your job easier we have
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to clearly artic articulate what my job
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looks like and what that organizational
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and job design is going to be going
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forward it may also mean that we are
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going to restructure the way I report to
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people the way I collaborate with people
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the way I do my own job and so my entire
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job is changing and so that
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organizational design aspect of change
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management becomes absolutely critical
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and it's another one of those underrated
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overlooked things within change
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management because so many times we want
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to focus on the end State let's just put
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new technologies and tools in place
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people are going to love it don't worry
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and let's go ahead and train them on
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these new technologies and tools and go
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live but the reality is we're deploying
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Technologies to make our organizations
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more successful more efficient more
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profitable and we're doing it to make
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our teams more effective so we have to
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Define how is it we're making our teams
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more effective just putting the
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technology in place is not enough we
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have to Define what the organization
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looks like and what the job rules and
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responsibilities are going to look like
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going forward so it's very important not
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to overlook organizational design and
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make sure that organizational design is
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one of your top five steps to an
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effective change
00:11:04
strategy a fifth important step to
00:11:07
organizational change management is one
00:11:09
that doesn't sound like it has anything
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to do with organizational change
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management but it has a lot to do with
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it and that is benefits realization or
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value realization depending on what kind
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of term you want to use but in essence
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what we're saying is how do we realize
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the potential value of all the
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technology and process improvements that
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we're investing in as an organization
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and it's not enough just to put in new
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technology the benefits and the value
00:11:30
will not just automatically come because
00:11:32
we put new Tools in place they come
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because we've managed the benefits we've
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managed the value optimization of the
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project so benefits realization starts
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with a business case and I think most
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organizations understand and most
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project teams understand the value of
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creating a business case largely because
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they have to do it to justify the
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project they have to determine whether
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or not there's an Roi in the investment
00:11:51
they're about to make but often times
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what we do is we set that business case
00:11:55
aside once we get approval we let it
00:11:57
collect dust on a shelf and we go
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forward with our digital transformation
00:12:00
the more successful organizations and
00:12:01
the more successful change initiatives
00:12:03
will take that same business case and
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use that as a benefit realization tool
00:12:07
and a value optimization tool to ensure
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that we're managing to those benefits
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and realizing the benefits over time and
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the scary part about it that leads a lot
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of people to just forget about benefits
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realization is that when you go through
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a benefits realization exercise you will
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inevitably find that you're not
00:12:22
realizing the business value you
00:12:23
expected as fast as you thought you
00:12:25
would and that's okay it's better to
00:12:27
understand that recognize that and do
00:12:29
something about it rather than setting
00:12:30
it aside and just hoping the problem
00:12:32
goes away so we want to make sure that
00:12:34
we use benefits realization to optimize
00:12:36
benefits after the fact and the way we
00:12:37
do that is we go back and measure and
00:12:39
look at how much business value are we
00:12:41
actually getting now that we've gone
00:12:42
live with new technologies and how can
00:12:44
we optimize that longer term and that
00:12:46
may come in the form of process
00:12:48
improvements or retraining refresher
00:12:50
training for the team it could be that
00:12:51
we reconfigure redeploy Technologies in
00:12:54
a different way than we originally did
00:12:55
so it's a way to be agile and to
00:12:57
fine-tune the implementation and all the
00:12:59
time and money we've just spent on that
00:13:00
deployment the other way that benefits
00:13:02
realization helps is even shorter term
00:13:04
than that it helps us have somewhat of a
00:13:06
North star and a Guiding Light in our
00:13:09
digital transformation so that we can
00:13:10
make better decisions when it comes to
00:13:12
potential scope increases or additional
00:13:15
modules or deployments of different
00:13:17
types of Technologies now we can make
00:13:18
more informed Roi based decisions on
00:13:21
whether or not it adds business value to
00:13:23
our organization and it'll help us from
00:13:25
a project governance perspective as well
00:13:27
so there's a whole host of reasons why
00:13:28
you want use benefits realization and
00:13:30
leverage that workstream within your
00:13:33
change management strategy and plan so I
00:13:35
hope this has given you some guidance on
00:13:37
the five steps that are most important
00:13:38
to get started on your change management
00:13:40
strategy I'm not saying that these are
00:13:42
the only five steps you should follow
00:13:43
but I'd say if you start with these five
00:13:45
steps in your change strategy you're
00:13:46
going to get a majority of the value
00:13:49
that you can and should get out of
00:13:50
change management especially if you are
00:13:52
operating with a limited change team or
00:13:54
limited resources or limited time or all
00:13:56
the above now for more information on
00:13:59
change strategies and best practices and
00:14:00
Lessons Learned I encourage you to read
00:14:02
our guide to organizational change
00:14:04
management it's a guide that contains a
00:14:06
number of best practices and Lessons
00:14:07
Learned and you can read that by
00:14:08
scanning the QR code in front of you or
00:14:10
you can go to the links below so I hope
00:14:12
you found this information useful and
00:14:13
hope you have a great
00:14:19
day enable change within your
00:14:23
organization nope nope that just wasn't
00:14:26
I wasn't feeling that one that may sound
00:14:27
good in theory but the reality is I'm
00:14:29
going to
00:14:30
just so in other words the way not in
00:14:33
other words so a way to a way to talk is
00:14:37
to stop stuttering that enable man just
00:14:41
doesn't make sense it's in my head
00:14:42
though it's right there Ian yet those
00:14:45
business that's not the word I mean to
00:14:47
say it's stop saying it okay
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