Change Matters - Overlook the people issues... at your peril!
Paul is a Principal Consultant at ProActive Services with extensive experience working with clients on service improvement programmes.
In this article, he discusses some of the cultural change issues that we often come up against and ways in they have been addressed.
8 Steps to Cultural Change
Improving delivery of IT services has always required a multidisciplinary approach that moves beyond the traditional process led approach which is now acknowledged in the latest release of ITIL Version 3. However it is my experience that many Managers continue to underestimate the criticality of addressing the people issues when embarking on service improvement programmes and as a result fail to achieve their goals and objectives. This is a frequent theme in surveys.
When working with organisations undertaking service improvement programmes, I continually utilise and reference a range of frameworks and theories in order to be effective as I can to assist them achieve their objectives. I find the issues that relate to organisational change the most challenging and it comes as no surprise to find that research and studies regarding the success of programmes are regularly quoting around 70% failure rates where cultural change was a key requirement to success.
Organisational change theorists and proponents have published countless books and articles on the subject and one of most useful and easy to understand texts that I have come across is by John P. Kotter so it was pleasing to see that his eight steps are referenced in the ‘Continual Service Improvement’ book of ITIL Version 3.
Kotter researched close to 100 organisations to understand what they did to transform themselves to winners and found that most people did not handle large scale change well and made predictable mistakes. He identified eight main reasons as to why transformations fail and developed an eight step model for organisations to use when undergoing change.
It is important to note that in his follow up research, Kotter observed that people mostly “see and feel” change rather than “analyse and think” about change and that successful organisations undergoing transformational change focussed on showing people what the problems were, how to resolve them and also worked on enhancing their feelings about change.
Kotter’s 8 steps are described in further detail on the following pages, along with practical examples of where it has – and hasn’t – worked.
1. Increase Urgency
Just because an organisation initiates a service improvement programme, it is rarely enough to get people up and ready to move. It is fairly common to find to complacency, fear or just hesitation and whatever the reason for the initial resistance, it usually means that the service improvement programme never gets off the ground or soon stalls if it does.
A sense of urgency needs to be created so that staff will stir and be ready to get going. Quite often, I find that the urgency of a service improvement programme has been intensified by a specific business requirement or as a result of general customer dissatisfaction.
The more successful improvement programmes I have worked on have been able to increase their sense of urgency due to other business projects driving change, such as company mergers or acquisitions where IT have to play a key role.
Other successes have been where process and/or organisational design has been required to ensure a more successful roll out of new technologies.
One of our clients conducted a customer satisfaction survey as the first initiative of the improvement programme and modified the programme accordingly to the feedback and recommendations made.
Another organisation engaged a leading TV presenter to interview their key customers and also their internal department heads to seek their feedback regarding delivery of IT services. This was all captured on camera and then played back to all staff in facilitated sessions. Although some of the feedback was surprisingly positive, other feedback was quite sobering. This stung the organisation into action to develop a series of improvement initiatives.
The more successful improvement programmes I have worked on have been able to increase their sense of urgency due to other business projects driving change such as company mergers or acquisitions where IT have to play a key role. Other successes have been where process and/or organisational design has been required to ensure a more successful roll out of new technologies.
2. Build the guiding team
When embarking on a service improvement programme, I find that it is quite common that one particular individual is assigned to manage the programme and implement the improvements and only engage relevant staff on a needs basis. In these cases the individual soon starts to struggle with the immensity of the task at hand as it is usually a long battle to get staff involved and get the change rolling.
It is critical to lead change from the top level and the more successful organisations understand the roles and competencies required for change and assign teams to provide leadership and guidance for the rest of the organisation undergoing change.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter termed these roles as change strategists who are responsible for identifying the need for change, creating a vision and providing leadership; change implementers who are the staff who act as change agents to “make it happen” and manage the day to day process for change, and change recipients who must adopt and adapt to the change. The change recipients represent the largest group and their response and reaction to the call for change will eventually determine whether the change is successful or not.
My observation is that the more cohesive the management team, the more successful the change. In many of the programmes I work on, the management team usually forms the change leadership team and supervisory staff the change implementers.
I always discuss these roles at the programme planning sessions and ask clients to assign staff with specific responsibilities for programme, project and change management.
It is important to select the right staff with the appropriate leadership skills for the change team and they should be the energetic and proficient. It may be appropriate to place outsiders in the team if you need to stimulate thinking and generate new ideas. It has been particularly rewarding to engage business representatives at the outset of improvement programmes but I must say there is usually reluctance from one or both parties to do this.
Strategies of more successful organisations I have worked with include identifying and working with the key “influencers” in the organisation to promote the benefits of the improvement programme, carefully selecting, screening and publicly endorsing change champions within the IT department and creating a specialist CSI team to provide governance for the programme and lead the change.
3. Get the vision rightHere it is important to remember Kotter’s observation that people mostly always “see and feel” change. A vision for change needs to be vivid, simple and vibrant so that staff feel uplifted. It produces a clear sense of direction in what needs to change, how the new organisation will be and the sense of urgency required.
I continue to find that an effective vision for change is the one of the most difficult things to achieve and I am amazed how many organisations still don’t understand how powerful visioning techniques can be.
At our strategy planning workshops, I help the management team to develop a vision for change by asking how the organisation is like today and then ask them how they would like it to be in the future (2-3 years time).
To facilitate this, I distribute packs of CCS cards as they provide a very fast means to articulate subjects that are sometimes difficult to describe or understand. This helps the team to create images as well as words for their vision for the future. The discussions themselves are often quite productive as the managers start to develop a shared vision that they feel confident and comfortable in communicating.
Powerful metaphors can also be useful. One organisation engaged an external agency to help develop a vision for change and a series of posters were created and hang all over the offices that depicted mountains, rivers and rapids and told a simple story of how the organisation was navigating it’s way along the river and how they need to be equipped to handle the rapids.
4. Communicate for buy in
The first four steps are all about energising the critical mass of people and step four is a critical step. At this point, staff either take up the challenge - or you lose them.
I advise my clients that it is important that the vision for change is communicated to as many stakeholders as possible to get their buy in. The message should be simple and heartfelt and address any concerns that stakeholders may have.
I usually assist clients to develop a communication plan. Some produce simple matrices whereas others develop comprehensive stakeholder maps. The Continual Service Improvement book has a section on defining a communication plan and the Planning to Implement Service Management book has information regarding stakeholders including an example of a stakeholder map.
The communicator needs to be congruent with the message and acknowledged as “walking the talk.” Some of the worst communiqués I have come across have been in the form of emails and/or delivered in a patronising manner.
On the other hand, one of the most effective presentations I have seen is where the IT Manager called the entire IT department to a meeting and told them his or her vision for the future, the goals and objectives for the change and what was expected of everyone. It was a heartfelt presentation and at the end he answered questions from the staff and addressed concerns that some people had.
Consistency of message is also important. My view is that it is better that the IT Manager makes the initial presentations about the change to all stakeholders otherwise the message tends to become diluted, blurred or left out altogether.
In larger organisations I have seen IT Management Teams hold forums, Town Hall meetings or road shows across the country.
In one organisation which was trying to implement a standardised Change Management process, the Change Manager conducted several sessions with the different technology teams to talk about the new process and address any concerns. At first it wasn’t very pleasant and he came up against a lot of negativity and push back, but he persevered with his calm style, consistent message of why they need a standard change process and eventually won over.
Similarly, in another organisation, the Problem Manager got his message to his staff across by talking at the monthly Town Hall meeting then following up with lunch time knowledge sharing sessions to talk about the objective, key points and benefits of the process. This was well received and the process was implemented smoothly.
5. Empower action
In this step, Kotter emphasises the importance of removing obstacles rather than giving power or authority to people. Research has found that IT professionals place a high value on autonomy and independence so it is important that they are given the appropriate skills, tools and confidence to achieve the change.
Obstacles I have come up against include inexperienced or disempowering managers, lack or resources to work on the improvement project and unavailability of key decision makers at crucial times. Some obstacles are inherent to the culture of the organisation, often in the sub conscious and not fully understood. Steve Simpson discusses the “unwritten ground rules” of organisations which are generally negatively orientated, induce behaviours that are misaligned to corporate values and inhibit overall performance. He advocates a direct approach in creating an awareness of these and developing strategies to replace them with more positive ones.
I regularly try to identify the behaviours causing the obstacles and effectively challenge staff to change their style to some degree. Of course, diplomacy is of utmost importance, especially when working in a consultancy role. I have had to carry out the occasional wrist slapping but always try to ensure it is done in a humorous way.
Usually only straightforward actions are required such as facilitating a resource planning session to ensure managers commit their staff to work on the project, formally reporting risks and ensuring countermeasures are put in place, and just even providing feedback on what seems to be working well in the programme and what needs to be improved is quite empowering in itself.
In the more extreme cases, I have advised that an organisational review may be appropriate to openly identify the issues affecting the progress of the CSIP and provide recommendations to address them.
I was assisting to create a single cohesive technology support team in one organisation but one of the managers was blocking most things we were trying to implement. We couldn’t get him to attend key meetings so I started a series of impromptu meetings with him at the local coffee shop. I gradually stated the case for change and tried to understand his viewpoint. Eventually we were able to reach consensus on some points and on others we “agreed to disagree” but ultimately we were able to navigate a way through the blocks and achieved the outcomes we needed.
6. Create short term wins
A key to success is to set achievable wins in the early part of the service improvement programmes. Apart from providing an immediate benefit and justification for the programme, they bolster confidence, promote more buy in and propel the programme forward.
If ProActive are engaged to carry out a process maturity assessment before the programme, I always try to identify “early wins” as part of the recommendations for improving service delivery. These are not always easy to achieve as it takes time to get some momentum going with the programme so it is important to manage expectations with all the stakeholders and recognise the successes no matter how small they are right from the outset.
Early wins need to be visible and communicated to all stakeholders and be meaningful to them so it is important again to remember about “seeing and feeling” change. It is also important to understand any risks and constraints to achieving early wins in the face of resistance to change and steep learning curves.
Usually, one of my main challenges is to ensure that appropriate resources are assigned to the project at the outset and my standard approach is to help create a programme plan that has a phased roll out of improvements with basic stages such as Requirements, Design, Build and Implementation for each phase, so that this becomes a repeatable process for the entire programme. The project plan should have clear tasks and dates outlined under each stage so that project resources understand what is required of them.
I find that quite often, it takes time for people working on the process design stage to understand what is required of them and to reach a reasonable level of consensus. In most cases, trying to implement a single Change Management process or get Configuration Management going in the first phase is unrealistic if the cultural issues haven’t been addressed or stakeholders are not familiar with the improvement process.
The more successful programmes are where a realistic and measurable (think SMART) objectives have been set for the short term such as to existing processes such as Incident or Change Management.
It is important to ensure that the medium and long terms objectives of the programme are also kept in sight at all times and I frequently use the term “chunk for success” when helping organisations to set achievable goals.
The first phase with one organisation I worked with was mainly focussed on setting up a Programme Office in order to provide governance for all the improvement projects in the subsequent phases. This is still working well several years later.
In another organisation, the initial view was that Service Improvement Plan could be run as part of normal operations with minimal governance. Each week I would meet with process owners to set goals help them and check progress from the previous week. Progress was slow as “there was always” operational issues and meetings to deal with. On investigating how projects were managed, I saw that all the ITIL projects were shown as green and than found out that the process owners were amending their target dates each month to keep the green.
7. Don’t let up
It is important to “keep the momentum” going throughout the life of the service improvement programme. Often, once the first phase is completed, staff feel overwhelmed and want a break. Short term performance may have improved and complacency sets in but as it probably wasn’t easy to get the programme up and running in the first place, some pressure needs to be kept up so that change becomes ingrained into the organisation’s culture.
New ways are constantly needed for keeping up the urgency of the programme. I always try to schedule a planning meeting for the next phase near the end of the current phase to ensure we re-focus on the programme.
I start with a progress update, celebrate the achievements and carry out a lessons learnt segment to help stakeholders determine what worked well and what needs to be improved in the running of subsequent phases. It is important to be flexible as the sequence for processes that are earmarked for improvement is frequently modified along with the project timeline.
Things that work for keeping momentum include having a dedicated Programme or Project Manager, conducting regular steering committee meetings for rapid decision making and engaging a consultant to assist on a regular basis.
Some organisations don’t directly link improvements to operational performance very well so I encourage them to develop a KPI scorecard where they develop metrics linked to the processes being improved, set targets and report their progress on a regular basis.
I have helped several organisations to develop a strategy and set out clear steps for the new IT organisation as it transitions and transforms from a Help Desk through to a Service Centred or Knowledge Centred model.
In one organisation, the IT Manager continually got staff to relocate their seating position in the office as the new teams transformed. The administrator who was assigned to modify the office seating plan was termed, tongue in cheek, the “Grim Relocator” as change was gradually accepted.
8. Make change stick
Gaining improvements in service delivery is generally hard won by so it is very disappointing to find that some organisations I have worked with previously have slipped back into poor and/or ineffective work practices.
Changes from service improvement programme have to be embedded into the new organisation by developing new group norms of behaviour and shared values.
Kotter advises that this has to be the last step in the change process and in the third step of his three step Change Model, Kurt Lewin also advocates the “Unfreezing” of the organisation by taking measures to ensure the results will be permanent including neutralising any opposing forces to change.
Things that I have found useful for helping change stick include:
- formation of suitably skilled and customer focussed working teams,
- recognition and promotion of change champions,
- comprehensive new employee induction programmes,
- ongoing coaching and mentoring of process owners, and
- instigation of an operational service improvement process.
As I mentioned in step 7, a trending of performance in terms of key performance indicators is another means to motivating staff to change their work practices. A steady stream of evidence is needed to convince staff that change is successful so it is important to keep on telling and publishing the success stories of the service improvement programme until they eventually become part of the organisation’s folklore.
Conclusion
Cultural issues need to be understood and addressed when undertaking a service improvement programme. A multi disciplinary approach is required where a range of frameworks, theories and techniques are utilised to ensure success. Engaging people and positively influencing how they think and feel about change is key to success. Managers need to work closely with their staff to ensure they have a clear grasp of the problems they face, instil confidence and empower them to resolve these problems. There are many simple and/or innovative ways to tackle these problems.
