In my mind there is no single factor that makes major organization change easier than when people want to see the change take place. As we know, this isn’t always the case. Different individuals see things from a different perspective and that makes alignment toward a common goal sometimes very difficult. Do you recall Mayor Larry Vaughn in the movie “Jaws“? The mayor wasn’t evil; he desperately wanted to believe that there wasn’t a big problem and there was still an opportunity to salvage the tourist season for the little town of Amity. Police Chief Martin Brody‘s concern was to be sure, certain, that the beach was safe before allowing visitors to swim again, but when the first sizable tiger shark was caught the Mayor and many others wanted to believe the beach was safe and opened it again. As movie watchers, we knew that the film was only about 1/2 over so the really big shark was still out there, but if the great white had moved to other hunting grounds no one would have been the wiser.
Vaughn wasn’t evil or maligned, he didn’t share the vision for what needed to take place. Brody had this vision, but wasn’t able to communicate it effectively enough to gain alignment and all push in the same direction. Now imagine this among a business’ leadership team of a dozen or so individuals all representing a different perspective and various functions.
The first step of gaining alignment is a clear understanding of exactly what the problem is. Given complex business problems, people will quickly jump to conclusions about why this issue is occurring. One way to do this is to dip into the Lean Manufacturing / Six Sigma toolbox and utilize a “Why-Why” analysis: in short, this is the practice of getting the right people in the room and looking at the current major issue occurring; then ask why this is happening. Upon getting various results, you ask why each of those is happening, and so on… sometimes this practice is called the “5 Whys” because most groups find that once they’ve drilled down in the process 5 times, things seem to be as basic as they get (“root cause“). One other interesting thing often happens: themes or perhaps common root causes often result, indicating that there are three or maybe five things that if the organization can influence, this will make a major effect on the end result that you’re seeing. In the process of this, organization leaders gain alignment and agreement around what specifically are the root causes of the issues at hand.
In the Jaws case, there was no doubt what the problem was; there was a huge fish out there eating tourists for snacks. The questions were, can we agree on a solution and how do we know when the solution has been attained? Clearly when the first tiger shark was caught, the mayor was convinced it was over. Brody and marine biologist Matt Hooper are unconvinced and continue their search, and their review of the stomach contents of the captured tiger shark seem to confirm their beliefs. Only when another great white attack occurs does the entire town commit to solving the problem right. By that time, significant time had passed; if this is your business or organization, significant progress or profits may be wiped out.
This is about mission. Not the longer-term vision for the organization, but the mission for ‘how do we avoid this particular business obstacle in order to continue on toward our vision‘? It’s typically short term, and if you’ve done a “Why-Why” analysis or other alignment exercise, you collectively understand what the problem is. However, there’s one more problem to consider at this point: the organization’s willingness to challenge the status quo. I once worked for a firm that said they wanted to see change and improvement take place, yet when anyone complained that we were playing in his backyard, it came to be an issue. In short, the business was not willing to challenge the status quo. As an HR leader, you need to test for this up front. If the organization truly isn’t willing to challenge the status quo, perhaps now is not the time to embark upon the change initiative. Work harder to try to understand how big of a problem this is (get data from internal and external sources) or partner with your business leader to develop the vision (find examples, best practices, model the standards for leadership more clearly).
Yet challenging status quo is essential and by very definition it embraces change, and accelerating change. There is an early step here — your top leadership needs to be visible and credible about standing up in front of the organization and saying, “Here’s the problem… we need to fix it…. we are all going to join together and see this thing through to its conclusion.” This combats the status quo, it effectively creates an internal crisis that we are all going to join together to fight, and therefore it develops a shared need.
The best example of this I’ve personally witnessed was in 1991 when General Motors ElectroMotive Division (EMD), which then held about 60% of the US market for sale of locomotives, was mentioned as a candidate for possible sale in some of the industry newspapers. GE Transportation (GETS), then holding approximately 40% of the US market share, viewed this as a threat and then-CEO Bob Nardelli of GETS collected his management team together and brought with him Roger Penske, who as leader of Detroit Diesel Allison at the time, was a very likely successful bidder for General Motors EMD. Nardelli effectively used this discussion with the team to galvanize the need for change. Everyone in the room learned that Penske had the capability of making EMD a much more dangerous competitor to GETS, which would translate to lost sales, downsizing, or even closure for GETS. This drove the mission home, and GE was able to perform a remarkable series of cost-cutting and market development measures that turned the organization around and since that time has managed to win an approximated 70% of market share. Nardelli effectively saw a risk, identified it as a crisis, and galvanized the organization to overcome the status quo. This is the kind of thing your organization needs to do. Warning: don’t “make up” a crisis — it has to be real and credible to be effective.
One of the most effective tools I’ve used in this regard is the 4-block “Threat and Opportunity” matrix. It’s structure is rather simple: Threat and Opportunity are the columns, Short Term and Long Term are the rows. Have the team identify short term threats and long term threats (“What are the issues to potentially overcome us in the short term or the long term if we fail to be successful making this change?”) as well as short term and long term opportunities (“What benefits or new markets are available to the business if we take advantage of making this change?”).
In short, your organization’s employees and leaders need to be properly aligned in the direction of change. If your leaders aren’t ready, you need to get them ready, and test to ensure that they are ready before moving forward. Use good leadership and communications strategies to confirm and demonstrate commitment to the success of this change to all employees.
HR Strategy and Tactics 