Kolar Associates

Managing change

The idea

Organizations often struggle to successfully implement change. Part of the problem comes from thinking of change as separate from the day-to-day running of the business. There are three common misconceptions about change management :

  • People are resistant to change
  • Managing change is different (and requires different tools and techniques) than other contexts in which people are being managed
  • Change initiatives have clearly delineated starting and stopping points

Leaders who buy-in to these misconceptions will almost always struggle to successfully implement change.

People are not as averse to change as we think. They are averse to doing things that provide little to no value, make things worse, change how things are done without changing the result, or require more personal investment than potential reward.

Helping people succeed is one of a leader's primary responsibilities. The key to successfully leading change is focusing less on the change and more on the people who are being changed. The way to do that is no different than helping people succeed in any context.

People perform best when they have ability, information, and motivation. A good leader manages and ensures all three, all of the time. There are also a few universal stumbling blocks that prevent leaders from getting the most from their people:

  • Putting organizational success ahead of people's success
  • Protecting the status quo (e.g., making it easier to not do something new)
  • Treating employee input as an obstacle to change/progress
  • Forcing people to make a greater investment/commitment to your goals than the organization is willing to make
  • Treating change or performance improvement as a linear process
  • Communicating what you want to say rather than what people want to know

Leading people is hard. During times of change, under extreme operating conditions, or during projects, a leader's primary focus should be to help his or her people succeed. Remembering and focusing on that simple principle will go a long way in driving successful results.

The story

A group of physicians was trying to implement a voice recognition system for capturing notes about patients. The new system was an improvement over the old. The old system had doctors dictating their notes into a tape recorder. They were then manually transcribed. That was quite costly. Many of the doctors, after a bit of prodding, started using the system. However, there were a few hold outs. The on-going transcription cost was becoming a burden on the group. I asked the chair of the department what happened to the doctors who weren't using the system. His answered explained their behavior perfectly.

The transcribed records were still being turned around in a day just as always. The department also continued to pay for the transcription costs. Maintaining the status quo was the path of least resistance for those doctors. Ironically, that path was created by the leaders of the group who were trying to champion the change. They thought that by letting people transition slowly they’d get greater buy in. Sometimes that works. In this case, it just gave people a longer time to resist the change.

We discussed some options. One option was that the doctors would have free access to the voice recognition tool but would have to pay (either personally or from their specific departmental funds) for transcription services. We also discussed changing the agreement with the transcription company to a 2-3 day turnaround as opposed to the nearly instant turnaround from the new system.

In either case, the status quo would now have a cost. The path of least resistance was to use the new system. Of course, this assumes that learning and using the new system was easy, accessible and working when the doctors needed it.

Training offerings

Brad customizes and tailors all of his training courses to incorporate content, issues, and examples that are unique to your organization. In addition to his standard courses (listed below), he can create custom training experiences adapted to your unique needs.

Standard courses (click for more detail):

Consulting services

Let Brad help you understand what it preventing your people from succeeding during times of change. He'll adapt his suite of performance improvement tools to fit your change context.

  • Defining outcome-based milestones to ensure that you are making real progress toward reaching your change goals
  • Change readiness assessment – a general assessment to help you understand the ability, information, and motivation issues preventing your people from succeeding through the change
  • People-focused messaging – ensuring that you are understanding and responding to your people's needs