Mastering Change: Frameworks, Management, and Strategies
Change
Framework Conditions:
- Jumps in Innovation cycles
- Shortening of resources (time & money)
- Key driver of change: The market
Managing Complexity:
- Operations: Reduced processing time, costs, manual work & errors
- Customers: Faster, standardized customer service
- Information Technology: Lower development costs and fewer non-standard requirements
- Finance: Better understanding of probability and more predictability
- Marketing & Product Development: Faster time-to-market and lower costs
- Sales: Increased sales, repricing opportunities & transparency
4 C’s Global Leadership Model:
Conflict, Connectivity, Creativity, Communication
Change Management:
Systematic approach to deal with change in perspective of company & individual. The process, tools, and techniques to manage the people-side of change. Processes which empower employees to embrace change by using different tools and techniques. Moving from current state to future state while minimizing disruption to the organization and maximizing benefits.
From current state to transition state to future state on people side as well as on technical side (through project management & change management)
- Communication: Assess and select delivery channels, plan and deliver messages
- Training/Support: Assess skills & training needs, deliver training plan, recruit trainers
- Engagement: Stakeholder involvement, gather feedback, participate in project role, focus groups
- Sponsorship/Leadership: Identify & assess leaders, educate & coach sponsors
- Impacts/Readiness: Identify audience, document impacts, identify change enablers & inhibitors
- Monitor/Reinforce: Reinforce behaviors, measure & monitor adoption, intervene as required
Organizational Development “The Big Picture”
- Stakeholder Value Management: HR, Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, PR, IR, Regulatory Affairs
- Profit Management: Accounting, Taxation, Finance
- Operations Management: Resource Management, Product/Service Production, Logistics
- Organizational Development Management: Talent Development, Change Management, Organizational Design, Innovation, Structured Idea Management, Creativity, Organizational Learning
Barriers to Change:
- Psychological issues: Cold start, fear, why change?
- Lack of employee involvement: Most common, fear of the unknown, not listening to their opinion, not providing relevant, sufficient resources
- Lack of effective communication strategy: Stick to the truth, constant interaction, employees need to know also how the change will affect them as well as how they will adapt to the change, not just what to do.
- Bad culture shift planning: Taking feelings of employees into account
- Unknown current state: Conducting an assessment to understand current state of change
- Organizational complexity: Introducing a keen and skillful approach, never tackle a change that is too complex for your organization
- Signs of resistance: Confusion, denial, sabotage, easy agreement, silence, criticism
Success Factors:
- Active and visible executive sponsorship: Leading & motivating others, making effective decisions, having the ability to align priorities among other leaders, direct communication with project management teams and being accessible
- Structured change management approach: Formal approach, process: established customizable, scalable, easy to implement across multiple changes, easy to apply at every phase of project; Assess → Design → Implement → Manage Change → Evaluate
- Dedicated change management resources: Someone has to be responsible and has to have access to the appropriate amount of funding and resources, dedicated resources with change management experience and a change team of flexible, ambitious, decisive, collaborative individuals
- Integration and engagement with project management: Supporting collaboration between project & change management for overall plan, integrating CM and PM approaches
- Employee engagement and participation: Making employees aware of the need for change, conducting training, involving employees in project design, hosting special events to promote change, aim: employee base with willingness to participate in change process, doing things differently
- Frequent & open communication: Delivering change messages in a timely and transparent manner, using effective channels and frequent communication, communicate clear and compelling reasons for the change implications of not changing, CEO is the preferred sender
- Engagement of middle managers: Closest to employees impacted by change (frontline), most resisting, frequent meetings & one-on-one (for continued support), training and coaching
Lewin’s Change Model:
- Unfreeze: Determine needs to change, Ensure strong support, create need for change, manage and understand doubts & concerns
- Change: Frequent communication, dispel rumors, empower action, involve people in process
- Refreeze: Anchor changes into the culture, develop ways to sustain change, provide support & training, celebrate success
The new manager: old skills less relevant, management of permanent change, safeguarding future
Leadership vs. Management
Ways of Dealing with Resistance:
- Communication
- Education
- Participation and involvement
- Negotiation and agreement
- Explicit and implicit cohesion
- Enablement of plan
- People and process alignment
- Reward and recognition
- Supportive culture
- Training
Key Factor: Communication
Target group oriented, personal talk most important channel, all communication as soon as possible (also success), as high rank as possible
Key Factor: Conflict Resolution
Explore issues → start conversation → find common ground → discover solutions → make process visible
Conflict Handling Solutions:
Accommodating, Collaborating, Competitive, Avoiding, Compromising (Concern for others x// Concern for self)
Strategy
= Big Picture how the organization is going to win in its environment, how to achieve goals, ways to get there, what is the advantage (#1), creating a sense of purpose, concrete, specific
It’s about the position you want to occupy & the core understanding of its distinction
Not the only thing that matters → poor execution also matters, but only itself also not enough
Worst error: is to compete with rivals on the same dimension, then all would do the same
Depends on needs a company tries to serve
Best start: not the best BUT unique (create unique value for customer)
Fundamental unit of analysis is the business or industry → performance results from 2 causes:
Industry structure & position within the industry
Determinants of Performance
a+b)
Weak/Functional Matrix:
Functional Manager controls resources, if project manager has limited authority → oversee cross-functional aspects
Balanced/Functional Matrix:
Power shared equally between project & functional manager, best aspects of both, most difficult to maintain because of shared power
Strong/Project Matrix:
Project manager primarily responsible for project, functional manager provides technical expertise and assigns resources
There is no best format, it always depends on purpose & function of organization
Team Structure:
Teams can be horizontal or vertical, synergize individual competencies
Network Structure:
Managers spend most of their time to coordinate and control external relations (electronically)
Boundary-less Structure:
Most radical, no boundaries between layers of management (vertical), functional areas (horizontal, e.g. Outsourcing to suppliers), and geographically, affects also role of customer