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INTRODUCING AND MANAGING CHANGE
As a manager you are
constantly making changes. Sometimes
these are local changes which you
initiate. At other times you introduce
larger changes on behalf of other
managers.
On the whole, people
respond negatively to the idea of
change. People are comfortable with what
is familiar. Change takes them away from
their comfort zone.
Any organisation needs to
change and adapt in order to survive.
This is not to say that
change for change’s sake is good.
Process re-engineering.
There are some management
gurus who will argue thus:
All organisations must
grow.
Any organisation that
works successfully becomes complacent.
Complacency leads to
deterioration in performance.
Therefore any change is
better than none.
The uncritical adoption
of this philosophy leads to the
absurdities of the “Process
Re-engineering” school whose motto is
“If it works, break it.”
In some organisations
this has been applied with a fervour
reminiscent of the Red Guards in Mao Tse
Tung’s China.
While the successful
introduction of vigorous, radical change
is often very good for the career
development of the instigator, it is
usually disastrous for the organisation
as a whole.
Kaizen.
An alternative view of
change, and one which can lead to
continued successful adaptation is the
kaizen philosophy.
There are a lot of
misconceptions about kaizen, mostly
perpetrated by those who make a lot of
money out of selling consultancy.
Kaizen is portrayed as a
set of procedures which will provide a
sort of oriental mystical enlightenment
across the entire organisation. If you
don’t get this result then you are
obviously not doing it properly.
Kaizen is actually
nothing to do with “Zen” as we in the
West imagine it. “Zen” just means “way”.
“Kai” is “the work place”. “Kaizen” is
the way of the workplace.
To the Japanese “kaizen”
simply means “the right way of doing
things”. To them it is obvious. If there
is a way of doing things that produces
the right results, then do it. What is
the point of doing a job in a way which
is less than right?
Japanese organisations
have benefitted from a culture based on
concepts of loyalty and striving for
perfection. In the more individualistic
West we cannot take these
characteristics for granted.
We tend to think in terms
of procedural panaceas. All our problems
can be solved if we put mechanisms in
place to promote communication between
managers and staff, or whatever the
latest fad may be. (Target-driven
performance measures?)
It is not the mechanics
of kaizen that make it work. Kaizen is
an attitude. If the attitude exists, the
right mechanics to keep it working will
follow.
The processes described
in previous modules are based on the
belief that people will generate “bottom
up” improvements when stimulated to do
so by effective management techniques.
After all, the people who do the work
are the experts on how to do the work.
However, not all change
can be bottom up. Sometimes as a manager
you need to introduce top down change.
These steps will enable you to do so in
a way which overcomes people’s natural
resistance and obtains their positive
commitment to making the change work.
This set of steps can
also be used when announcing change to a
group, as well as to individuals.
1. Give the background
and reasons that a change is needed.
2. Describe the change
and its effects.
3. Ask for specific
questions.
4. Empathise to negative
reactions.
5. Commit to provide any
further information needed. Set follow
up if needed.
6. Ask for employee help
and commitment.
Often you will find that
people who initially resisted a change
adapt quite happily to it after a short
while.
Sometimes you have to
accept that you need to introduce a
change that nobody will like.
So long as you expect a
certain amount of negative reaction you
can successfully introduce change by
addressing the more important questions;
does the employee understand what they
have to do? and will they do it?
1. Give the background
and reasons that a change is needed.
People are going to be
justifiably apprehensive and resistant
if a change is just introduced with no
explanation. Setting the change in
context is part of keeping people
informed about the bigger picture. They
may not like what is coming next, but at
least they know there is a justification
for it.
It could be a large
change:
"As you are aware, the
Senior Management team has had a working
party looking at the area of cost
reduction. This group has now produced
its recommendations".
Or a relatively minor
change:
"As you know, Sam has
gone home sick and will be off for about
two weeks. This means that I have had to
bring in an agency worker who will need
some guidance on how we operate.”
2. Describe the change
and its effects.
Now you give the news of
what the change(s) will be. You should
describe all the effects, not just what
you see as the positive ones. You do not
know for sure whether people will see
the changes as positive or negative, so
just describe them neutrally.
“So I need you to
allocate some time to brief this person
about the job and keep an eye on them in
the first couple of days. This will mean
you need to reallocate some of your
routine work to others in the
department.”
Sometimes you may need to
implement a change which you are not in
favour of. You may even have argued
against it. Do not try to curry favour
by un-selling the change. Once a
decision has been made, collective
accountability takes over.
The closest you should go
to express your view would be something
like:
“I argued against this
decision, but my view was not supported.
Now that the decision has been made I am
going to implement it.”
So simply announce the
change, and state what it is going to
mean to people’s work:
"As from the first of
next month the following measures will
be implemented. The effect of this on
your area will be... "
"So what I want you to do
is take over the completion of X's
report. This will mean that you have to
change your plans for Friday, but it
does give you an opportunity to develop
the communication skills highlighted at
your appraisal"
3. Ask for specific
questions.
By this stage the person
knows that a change will be made. There
is no opportunity to question whether
the change will happen. This is an
implementation process, not a
consultative process. (It is to be hoped
that consultation occurred well before
this stage, though it is surprising how
many work practice “improvements” are
implemented without ever talking to the
experts (the people who actually do the
job).
Beware of allowing an
opportunity for people to discuss the
merits of the change. This will only
cause diversion and delay, and maximises
the risk of negativity.
Keep this to a discussion
of how to implement the change.
There is no doubt about whether
to implement it.
Handled correctly, this
stage will mostly generate questions
about practical issues, though there
will probably be some expression of
feelings about the change.
4. Empathise to negative
reactions.
Answer the practical
questions. (When planning this session
you should have anticipated most of the
issues that could arise.) Any questions
that you can’t answer should be noted
for later.
Use empathy, self-esteem
and confidence to overcome expressions
of negative emotion:
"I can see that you're
apprehensive about this".
"I know this is very
sudden. I’m asking you to help because I
know you can do a good job".
On the rare occasions
when the response is surprisingly
enthusiastic, again use empathy to
reinforce it.
5. Commit to provide any
further information needed. Set follow
up if needed.
You should obviously
anticipate as many potential questions
as you can. As part of your planning,
you may also need to seek answers from
your manager.
You may also find during
the questions section that people
suggest ways to make the change happen
better:
“You can’t expect us to
do this perfectly from day one unless
we’ve got some sort of check list.”
“That’s a good idea. I’d
value your input. Come and see me
tomorrow at 9.00 with some ideas about
what it should cover.”
6. Ask for employee help
and commitment.
Throughout this process
there has been no opportunity for anyone
to object to the change. There would be
no point as it is going to happen
anyway.
They have had an
opportunity to question how it will be
implemented and to suggest improvements
to the implementation. That is as
democratic as this one gets. It is, in
effect, a command. But, by feeding it to
people in this structured way, it feels
more consultative.
You can capitalise on
this consultative feeling by asking for
their commitment to make it work:
"I'm relying on you to
make this work. Will you do it?"
What else can they now
say but “yes”?
Having said “yes”, they
are committed to making it work. They
will get used to the change and become
comfortable with it. They will later
probably complain when this change is
replaced by another.
Exercise:
1. Prepare the phrases
you will need to tell a member of staff
that you are changing their rest day
next week because the recent flu
epidemic has left you short staffed.
2. You have two office
staff. Due to a fall in orders you
cannot continue full employment. You
need to cut one job completely, and
reduce the other to thirty hours. Both
staff are doing the same kind of work. A
has been in post for two years, and B
for one year. Both are fully aware of
the business position and know that one
job will have to go.
You have decided to keep
B because their skill profile is more
aligned to what you will need over the
next couple of years.
Plan how you will break
the news to A, who has been assuming you
would operate a “first in – last out”
policy.
Plan how you will tell B
about the cut in hours.
3. The company has
decided to introduce “duvet days” (a
scheme which allows staff a quota of
unplanned, spontaneous leave days out of
their normal leave allowance). They may
take up to two duvet days per month but
may not carry any over. Any duvet days
not taken up revert to being normal
holiday entitlement. The only
requirement is to phone their manager on
the day they decide to take off.
Plan to announce this
scheme at a full staff meeting. |
