Seven Mistakes When Delivering Change | Orange Paper

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Seven mistakes when delivering change

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Introduction Disruption is here and no industry or organisation is safe. Century-old businesses that were once rock solid and delivered profit year-after-year, are challenged by the agile and innovative nature of startups. With truly entrepreneurial approaches, these startups are disrupting the market at warp speed and leaving many traditional businesses behind.

We only need to look at the landscape of familiar brands such as photography company Kodak. Once known for the ‘Kodak moment’, it developed the first digital camera in 1975, stagnated and then filed for bankruptcy in 2012. It saw the disruptive forces in the industry but failed to truly embrace the new business models that this level of change opens up. Kodak viewed digital photographs and ultimately online sharing of photographs as a way to expand its business rather than understanding that this ‘was’ the new business.

organisations need to embrace continuous change and do it at pace. According to a Global CEO study by IBM, the need to lead change is ever-growing, but the ability to successfully manage it is decreasing.

Businesses are unprepared for the level of impact created by change, meaning in more cases than not, the programmes fail to deliver the intended benefits.

Through my own experience, together with the S&S Partners and thought-leaders delivering some of the business world’s biggest transformations, I have uncovered the seven mistakes often made by organisations when implementing change.

Jacqueline Shakespeare Operating Partner Sullivan & Stanley (S&S)

Navigating this ‘new world’ is often a daunting and challenging task. To be successful,

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Mistake #1 - They try and run before they can walk Often, when organisations take on a new change programme they are under huge pressure to mobilise quickly. The eye is on the final prize and it is human nature to want to ‘get going’.

People assume that the sooner they start a piece of work, the sooner it will be delivered. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The stronger the foundations a business puts in place before change begins, the better position it is in to navigate the journey, tackle issues along the way and deliver successfully.

Businesses can determine the outcome of a change programme by measuring against six key components created by S&S, known as the ChangeReady6: Strategy - Alignment to the business strategy ensures that your change is relevant and is truly supporting the success of the organisation.

Leadership - Great leaders inspire their teams and understand how to lead through change.

People - Engaged teams take ownership of delivery and nurture a cultural shift through the organisation.

Customer - Customers are integral to the scoping of the programme and are part of the core team.

Delivery - Teams experiment and learn within a flexible governance framework.

Value - Sustainable benefit is delivered to customers regularly.

Top tips: • Take the online S&S ChangeReady6 test to assess how ChangeReady your organisation is. https://scorecard.changeready.global/ • Work to strengthen your ChangeReady components, thereby increasing the likelihood of successful delivery.

• Remember that it’s never too late to strengthen your score, keep focussing on the ChangeReady6 components throughout your change initiative.

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Mistake #2 - They forget that real change needs the whole team The engagement of employees is one of the most important components in defining the success or failure of a change programme. A report by McKinsey & Company estimates that 70% of change programmes fail to deliver their intended benefits, largely due to employee resistance.

Employees need to feel engaged in the reasons behind the change, understand ‘what’s in it for them’ and how they can contribute to its implementation. Too often, we assume that merely ‘telling’ people is enough, but this will never deliver truly sustainable change. Instead, leaders must step forward and invest the time and effort in engaging people in the vision and the journey ahead. Creating a collaborative culture where teams co-design the change with leaders, will ensure employees embrace the transformation, take accountability for the delivery and ultimately champion the change.

Top tips: • Co-design the change with individuals and teams to help employees make sense of the process and in turn understand the contribution they will make and ‘what’s in it for them’.

• Create opportunities for teams to work on small projects that embody and begin to deliver the change.

• Leverage the power of internal influencers and connectors to engage and guide teams through the transformation.

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Mistake #3 - They forget about the customer To drive a successful change initiative, organisations need to bring customers into the heart of the change and listen. By opening a two-way dialogue, it closes the loop between what the change promises and the value it delivers.

Some organisations keep the customer out of sight and out of mind, believing they know better or that it creates an easier path ahead. The customer is then ‘surprised’ when the change is delivered, creating mistrust and dissatisfaction.

By keeping the customer front of mind within a business, it creates strong, trusted relationships and ultimately drives greater value for the organisation. It’s easier and cheaper to nurture existing customers, rather than acquire new ones, evident by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company, which found that a 5% increase in customer retention, produces more than a 25% increase in profit.

Top tips: • Design your change with the customer in mind and be sensitive to any differences between the requirements they articulate and their actual needs.

• Bring your customers into your delivery team, keeping them present and visible throughout the change.

• Ensure the customer genuinely understands the full impact of the changes that you are making, listen to their feedback and review it with your team to understand how to keep improving.

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Mistake #4 - They think that one size fits all The world of transformational change is complex and unpredictable, meaning cause and effect can only be deduced in retrospect; using our knowledge, instinct and experience alone is not enough.

Humans will always try and control complex situations. An analogy of this is how we manage the flow of traffic through traffic lights and roundabouts. Traffic lights require compliance and little thinking from the individual, the system controls the flow of the traffic. Roundabouts are a far more effective way of managing the traffic, but they rely on the decision making of the drivers; accountability for the safe and efficient flow of traffic lies with the individual rather than the system.

With transformational change, organisations often try and ‘control’ the change. They create tight governance frameworks for it to operate within, expect the change to thrive and then are surprised when it doesn’t. Complex change is unpredictable, we cannot control it, we need to experiment and learn as we go through the process to be successful.

Top tips: • Large complex change isn’t predictable, don’t assume a standard governance framework is the best way to support fast and effective delivery.

• Resist trying to instil control around every part of your transformation, create an environment that encourages emergent change.

• Use the principles of agility and view your programme as iterative and collaborative.

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Mistake #5 - They forget to prioritise ruthlessly Most organisations are overwhelmed with the volume of change they face. They have more change programmes in flight than they are able to deliver, meaning there is far too much work in progress to deliver effectively.

As companies take on more and more, resources are pulled from one programme to another, depending on which stakeholder is shouting the loudest. Everything is a priority. Even when organisations try to manage the stream of work by going through a prioritisation exercise, all the sponsors convincingly talk about how their change is critical and cannot possibly be put on hold or stopped.

But the ability to prioritise ruthlessly is fundamental. To maximise the flow of valuable work, you need to manage the amount of work in progress. When we have too many projects running in parallel, workflows move slowly and sometimes even grind to a halt. This results in employees becoming frustrated along with sponsors.

Top tips: • Prioritise ruthlessly and often, don’t run multiple large complex change programmes in parallel.

• ‘Stop starting’ and instead ‘start finishing’.

• Face into and address the behaviour behind creating pet projects.

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Mistake #6 - They work in silos When an individual, specific team or department is more interested in satisfying their own personal objectives or ambitions, rather than working collaboratively to deliver a shared business goal, delivering change becomes much harder. As written by Patrick Lencioni in his book ‘Silos, Politics and Turf Wars’; “silos - and the turf wars they enable - devastate organisations. They waste resources, kill productivity, and jeopardise the achievement of goals.”

In a large change initiative, different areas within an organisation need to unite in their work and approach and focus on the delivery of the outcome rather than their own personal gain.

When this silo mentality is broken down, organisations are far more likely to embed successful change.

Top tips: • Create opportunities for leaders and managers across functions/departments to work together on problems. Silos start at the top, with the behaviour of team leaders, so make sure you remove them from the word go.

• Study your current operating model and then optimise it.

• Create outcome-oriented teams and incentivise them at team level rather than at the individual level to breakdown functional ways of working.

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Mistake #7 - They focus on delivering value at the end of the change The core purpose of any change programme is to deliver business value and improve the overall health and well-being of the organisation. Living in a fast-paced world generally means that what was needed when the project initially started will, in reality, be different from what is needed three months down the line.

So, when an organisation locks down a large scope with no intention of delivering regularly, it is risking the ability to deliver true value to the organisation. If on the other hand, it delivers value regularly, it will increase benefits to the business, reduce risk and make sure the change continues to be relevant.

Top tips: • Develop your plan to regularly deliver value to your stakeholders and customers, at a minimum of once every 90 days but more frequently where possible. • To demonstrate the value of the change, you need to be able to measure it; establish metrics and set your baseline early in the programme. • Measure trends and avoid targets. Targets can be gamed, people will do everything they can to hit the target even to the detriment of the rest of the organisation. Trends support continuous improvement.

By Jacqueline Shakespeare

Seven mistakes when delivering change

Change.

When organisations are truly ready for change, the experience is a motivating and energising one with real value delivered throughout. Leaders inspire, customers are loyal and change is seen as a journey rather than an end point, full of possibility, growth and learning for both the individual and the organisation.

To embed change successfully, organisations need to be ChangeReady. To find out how ready your organisation is, take the S&S ChangeReady test. https://scorecard.changeready.global/

The Change Society

Get in touch with the S&S team at hello@sullivanstanley.com

www.sullivanstanley.com

By Jacqueline Shakespeare