A version of this piece was originally posted on the Hog
Foundation for Mental Health’s blog site “Rick on Reform.” Click here for the original
posting.
Re-engineering.
Reinventing. Rightsizing. Reorganizing. Restructuring. Turning around. You have
heard them before. Just a few of the terms used to symbolize “transformation.”
We
talk much of transformation. Actually, we talk about transformation all the
time. But I submit to you that in both the private and public sectors, many
transformation change management efforts to date have not been successful. We
continue to hear countless stories of well-intentioned change efforts that have
fallen short or completely come off the rails. “Our strategy? Well, it seemed
like a good idea at the time…” Most of these efforts end up somewhere in
between, likely skewed toward the lower end of the scale. Think of the bell
curve: outliers at each end; most folks fall somewhere in the middle, with the
majority tilting towards the lower end.
Certainly
this was not the intention of those leading unsuccessful change efforts. So
what can we learn from this?
John
P. Kotter, renowned for his work on leading organizational change, shared the
results of his observations in a 1995 article (reprinted 2007) for the Harvard
Business Review titled “Leading Change: Why
Transformation Efforts Fail.” He highlighted the biggest errors
that can derail transformation efforts as well as basic lessons that can be
gleaned from successful organizational transformations.
To
the health care industry: listen up as Kotter’s observations still hold true
many, many years later!
To
know where you are going, you have to know where you came from. In other words,
institutional culture and history.
First,
a basic lesson from the more successful case examples is that the change
process goes through a series of phases. Check. It’s also important to
note that these phases usually require a considerable period of time and often
the right staging. Check again! Nothing comes easy or fast during the
implementation of change management.
A
second basic lesson is that critical mistakes during any of the phases can have
devastating consequences, either slowing momentum or worse (such as your change
process effort “coming off the rails”).
Kotter
emphasized that the most unsuccessful transformation efforts almost always
occur during at least one of the following phases:
- Generating
a greater sense of urgency. - Establishing
a powerful enough guiding coalition. - Developing
a clear vision. - Communicating
(or under-communicating) the vision clearly and often. - Removing
obstacles to towards the new vision. - Planning
for and designing short-term wins. - Premature
declarations of victory. - Embedding
or anchoring changes in the corporate culture.
No
real surprises here, right? That said, many transformation efforts continue to
fail or fall short by not paying attention to and not nurturing the
organization through these critical phases.
Note
that even if you get seven of the eight phases right, misjudging or not
thoroughly planning for that one phase is enough to bring your entire change
management effort to a slow down or screeching halt! A valuable insight, I’d
say!
I
realize this is an oversimplification as there are a multitude of complexities
that all organizations face during their transformation journey.
So
what can we learn from these important observations dating back to the mid-90s?
The big take-away is that all transformation efforts (yes, even successful
ones) are stressful, hectic and sometimes chaotic – and often combined with new
and exciting discoveries! Just as a clear vision is needed to guide an
organization through a major change process initiative, a vision of the actual
change process and phases, clarity on the endpoint for each of these phases,
anticipating some of the challenges to expect and ways to navigate these
challenges can certainly minimize the bumps to be expected. And fewer bumps can
be the difference between a successful transformation effort and failure.
So
which end of the bell curve do you want to find yourself on as you move through
your change management process?
|
Rick |
