People-centric Change

I once had a client who took exception to the fact that I had disagreed with him on a conference call: he was the boss and therefore I should have shown due deference to his views. So, when guest speaker Professor Julie Hodges disagreed with my assertion during the introduction to her Showcase on People-centric Change that “people hate change”, I could have been similarly offended. I’m not so thin-skinned though and it was encouraging to note that change was very often a positive thing.

Since most of management consulting work involves people having to change the way they use technology, the direction of their company or fundamental things like the location of their office, it behoves us to have a better appreciation of how change affects people.  Without people successfully changing, any change programme is doomed to fail.

Drawing on her many years as an organisation development consultant followed by her academic research work, Julie delivered an informed and authoritative view of change.

Traditional models of change such as John Kotter’s were very much based on a top-down approach but Julie maintained they were no longer fit for purpose. We should instead invert them to involve as many people as possible in co-creating the change.

This approach has one compelling advantage: it ensures that that the change achieves its purpose, since the benefits will only be realised when people change their way of working.

This doesn’t mean that the process aspect of change should be thrown out but that there should be a better balance between process and people. Puncturing the myth that “70% of change efforts fail” – there was no empirical evidence for this figure – Julie emphasised the importance of engaging stakeholders, both internally and externally, to ensure that benefit is sustained.

Julie proposed four key questions to ask stakeholders:

• How clear are they about what the change is and what it is trying to achieve?
• How supportive are they of what the change is trying to do?
• How prepared and informed are they about what the change means to them?
• What capability gaps are preventing commitment to the change?

Another key element was to identify the informal leaders who can be at any level across the organisation. They can usually be found within the groups that are most ready for change and are starting to embrace it. These are, not surprisingly, the key groups to get on board first.

Resistance will be inevitable and with any change, opposition will be a natural reaction. This actually creates energy around the change, rather than what some research has referred to as “organisational silence”.

Involving more people in decision making gives rise to one of the key challenges to this people-centric approach which is how to give autonomy without losing control. This could be managed by putting in place “guardrails” about what was and wasn’t negotiable.

Julie concluded with some practical implications which provide a useful summary for anyone wanting to adopt a more people-centric approach to change:

• Start with describing the rationale for considering change – the opportunities and threats.
• Identify key stakeholders and actively manage their engagement with the change process.
• Take time to understand alternative perspectives: allow employees to voice their ideas, concerns, challenges etc.
• Involve stakeholders in decision making and the co-creation of change.
• Be explicit about what is negotiable and non-negotiable.

With questions exploring the detail of the proposed approach and some of the cultural implications, as well as the impact of new, AI-based technologies, this was a highly practical session that contained many useful nuggets of wisdom for anyone about to embark on a change programme.

To learn more, watch the full recording of the event here.

 

Nick Bush, former Director, CMCE