Change management: The best kept secret around sustainable change
Change management: The best kept secret around sustainable change
I hope that this is one of thosearticles that you print off, pass around and mark as important because what I'm about to tell you really is the difference between whether your change programme will flourish and grow or wither away with the passing of time.
There are certain rules when you're trying to improve your business:
How the leaders think about the design and management of the work determines how the work is done and it's that relationship that predicts the success or failure of the business.
Before you make change you have to get knowledge how the business works today.
The direction of the change should be driven around a new way of thinking about work, policy and measurement design.
Whether the change sticks depends on whether the leaders change their thinking and their behaviour.
I'm going to make an assumption. You've heard me rant on about points 1-3 for the past eighteen months so I'll concentrate on why number four is so important and (what you want to know) how to actually get leaders to change.
Let's take a typical failing leader. Their head is full is unit costs, setting targets, service standards, productivity, customer care and functional work design. This has an influence on how they spend their time.
For example if they receive complaints, which they will (in spades), their first reaction is that the poor attitude people are at fault and they need fixed. Fixing means customer care! That won't work because the problem is likely down to the design of the system.
Orthey have a backlog, the assumption here is that the people are lazy. So a team of managers go and study how long it takes to do a piece of work and then set targets around how fast the work should be done. Anyone who fails will be punished! So people cheat and waste their ingenuity on cheating the system.
Do you get it? We change the processes, the policies and measures but unless the leaders actually: a.) understand why this was done and b.) how they need to behave differently, your firecracker change programme had just become a damp squib.
With me so far? Let's look at what the new behaviour looks like.
Understand the work from the customer's perspective. The leader must know how it feels to be a customer and how the work design influences that experience. For example the targets in public sector planning departments (actually all departments) cause good people to ignore cases that go outside of statutory indicators. Hence if you are a customer who has a difficult one you might wait hundreds of days for your answer. The leader must be able to look at the work and make the connection between the policy (do work within 57 days) and the behaviour they see.
Create new policies designed from the customer's perspective. It stands to reason that what matters to the customer is to be dealt with first in first out. So the new policy becomes, do work in the order that it comes in the door and work on one thing at a time. And to make it work the leader must remove the 57 day service standard.
Armed with this policy the leader creates a new purpose and has measures related to that purpose.
And now for the secret. The leader must reinforce and problem solve around the policy. First they observe and make sure that everyone is using the new policy. If not the job is to find out why. If some people simply didn't understand then the job is to reinforce the policy, explain why it was put in place and get people back on track. If people can't use the policy because of a problem in the work then the leaders job is to problem solve.
Which leaves a final question, what's the role of the consultant in all of this? To coach the leader. Which means the following:
Make sure the leader knows the core polices around how work should be done.
Go and study someone doing some work.
If the policy is not being used, coach the leader to ask why.
If it's simply human error coach the leader on how to reinforce the new policy.
If it's because the work design prevents the use of the policy coach the leader on how to problem solve.
For sustainable change repeat two to three times per week for 3-6 months. Sounds tough, and it is. But no-one says change is easy.
The Degree Trainings Of Project Management Credit Card Debt Management - Tips To Get Your Debt Under Control Pain Management Helps Manage Neck Pain Needful Advices before selecting good management colleges All About Debt Management Credit Card Debt Management - Manage Your Spending And Eliminate Debt Debt Relief Tips – How To Find A Legitimate Debt Management Solution Aarkstore Enterprise Hnwi In Indian Wealth Management Industry - Trends, Analysis And Forecast (2 Top Five Myths Of Debt Management Why You Should Turn Your Records Over To A Records Management Company The Technology of Contact Management The Elements of Effective Time Management How Can Ensure An Effective Project Management For Web Development