« We manage change ». No, you manage slides!

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La carte n’est pas le territoire…

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Change management doesn’t manage … changes but the representation of them!

Why, in companies, changes (mergers, IT deployments, …) fail or are so painful to manage?

Consider that : all project managers have now a change management plan in their pocket. But they still fail to deliver in time, budget or quality foreseen in the beginning of their reorganization projects.

We see 2 main causes:

They drive with a wrong map at hand: they mentally represent the company as a structure (gathering rules, processes and organigrams). That is handy (see slide 3) but that doesn’t help much. Because it is not reality.

They act with the wrong logic: change management as perceived - and sold- by most consultants.

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The wrong representation: the structure is not the organization (real company)

When a company is represented as a structure. Things seem to be clear and supposed to be known and acknowledged by everybody.

A false idea of reality

That gives

A clear vision CEO

CFO Sales

Region A Or Product line B

Etc.

Direct report

In fact, companies are much more an organization with humans (not kidding…), relations, (oppositions, alliances) and balances of different – and shifting - powers.

Group A

Group B

Group C

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The wrong logic: change managed as a process dubbed the “5 stages of grief”

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptanc

e

1. Denial

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Elizabeth Kübler Ross wrote a book in 1969 “On Death And Dying” after dealing with terminally ill patients in hospitals.

Her model was conceived to explain the different stages the survivor goes through when facing the death of a loved one.

We are very often lead by people coming from technical extraction (engineers). Management of changes is tolerated when expressed in processes. Hence the change process model representing the mindset of a person in a situation of change as below illustrated (From the Swiss-born psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler Ross).

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The wrong logic: change managed as a process

You probably noticed that corporate world doesn’t involve so many terminally ills patients. In companies facing a change, people have resources (even if they think first “I have no choice”). It is not like some losing a child or a parent (no choice at all). And these differences change everything in the model. This model, literally interpreted by most consultants, gives 3 false ideas:

There is always a happy end! People accept changes at the end. Hollywood is not far from change management ;) In real life, they won’t.

Changes, though being painful, progress steadily. This idea resonate deeply with the American mindset : “work hard then be rewarded”. In real life, it is more erratic and uncertain.

People are like sponges. “They will absorb changes anyhow, because they have no choice”. In real life, indeed, they will. But they will change the change in the way!

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Change management is not so simple…

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hange

Change won’t progress that way until a new organization find its own balance aka until each person will have a clear view of her perspectives, her remaining or new power

and the strategy she can have to improve her own situation.

Paradoxically, the process leads to consider that job is done when it really begins…

If people loose too much, you won’t have a happy end anyway.

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In fact, it is complicated!

It is indeed a messy situation that everybody wants to ignore. And keeps the feeling that both client and consultant are in control ;)

It is complicated. Stakes are high but not always known, hidden agendas foster, conflicts arise. If you want to understand that stuff, you need to work on it for a long (months) time, talk to and most importantly, listen to everybody. And negotiate if you want everybody onboard. Generally speaking, change management is a one way and top down process.

This is time consuming. You can reduce time with a big team of highly trained sociologists or psycho-sociologists on the field. Don’t dream: the simple fact to announce to a CEO that you need people from human sciences will drive him suspicious on your ability as a change manager. Funny but sadly true.

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Why such a success then ?

Companies don’t really want to manage changes. They simply want people to accept what the Board has decided. The “command and control” logic is still alive (and kicking). But they are aware that they need to do something…

But this is not the most important part in the mission. Consultancies consider that aspect as a subordinate part to their main mission (change the “structure”) : implement an IT system, reorganize the sales process, etc. They don’t want to go in the “organization” side of change: ROI is uncertain on the short term and client didn’t ask for it.

Mechanical change management is easy to sell. For consultants (coming from IT for instance), it is easy to « sell ». They don’t need to be experts in sociology to do the talk. For clients, it is easy to catch and it vaguely spares some guilt when heavily changing other people’s life through corporate moves.

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Great, you have destroyed the tool. Now what can we do?

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Make leaders learn to lose …to win at the end• Leaders are suspicious about the willingness of their staff to change and for good

reasons: people are not stupid.• Learn them to respect that and go for a good compromise when changing.

Listen and negotiate• Listen to people and prepare to negotiate. Indeed, change management team

presents listening as a mandatory step. They are not very often prepared to negotiate. But you can’t just listen to people without making a move towards them.

• Otherwise, say you impose change (which is fine with me) not that you manage it. • Oh. And people will act undercover anyway to regain some power.

Version 1 goes to Version 2. Prepare to change the change• When you finish to implement V1, start to work on… V2• When the dust settles, prepare for a feedback loop• Observe impacts, sucesses and failures• And change the change upon that real situation.