Getting Ready for Change

By Tracy Thurkow, Ph.D., Partner, Continuous Learning Group Inc.

Classic wisdom says that “management is about doing things right, and leadership is about doing the right things.” This is especially true during change. Good change management ensures that activities unfold in an orderly way. Change leadership ensures that people are fully invested in the vision and in achieving success.

One part of change leadership is to get people ready for change before it happens so they can perform at the highest possible levels after “go-live.” Two important things to remember:

1.  Getting ready for change is more than engagement and skill building.

The goal line isn’t go-live. It is achieving new levels of performance after go-live. Go-live is a visible milestone for deploying a new structure, process, or tool. Leaders need to make sure it happens as smoothly as possible. However, change leadership doesn’t stop until people are behaving differently and achieving new results.

Often new behaviors require support after go-live even if every effort is made to engage people, address concerns, train new skills, and provide job aids. An important question is, “Assuming communications and training are world-class and fully effective, what critical behaviors will still be difficult for people to do after go-live?” A related question is, “After go-live, what critical behaviors will we need to look for and encourage?”

These behaviors are High-Impact Behaviors. They create results. Getting ready for change means being clear on what the High-Impact Behaviors are and then reinforcing them after go-live.

2.  Leaders lead change (and advisors support leaders).

Change is about getting new results, and leaders are accountable for results. Leaders encourage the High-Impact Behaviors that create results. Leading change means personally understanding, communicating, and reinforcing those behaviors.

Advisors (whether an HR partner, a project manager, or a consultant) can supply ideas, skills, coaching, and tools to help leaders succeed. But advisors don’t lead change. They might manage change activities, but change leadership cannot be delegated to an advisor.

Tips for Advisors

Below are some tips that can help advisors ready people for change.

Ready the Sponsor

Advisors know just how important the sponsor is to the success of a change effort. Their role, of course, is to guide the project, make timely decisions, arrange resources, and champion the change.

A sometimes hidden role is that they must lead through influence, not only position authority. Because their decisions as sponsors can affect parts of the organization outside their direct authority, they need strategies for influencing peers and others. They need influencing skills, credibility, and good relationships in order to enroll other leaders in the change.

If you are an advisor, you can help ready the sponsor:

• Help the sponsor become more comfortable influencing peers and other leaders.
• Ensure the sponsor hears objective information about how the change is proceeding—what is working, what isn’t working, and your advice about what to do about it.
• Help the sponsor define what success looks like after go-live. Focus on the High-Impact Behaviors, and encourage the sponsor to set the expectation that the job isn’t done until those behaviors are happening.

Ready the Leaders

Leaders are more than champions for change. Leaders provide the day-to-day direction and reinforcement that sets the pace and energy level for change. They are an important source of reinforcement for the High-Impact Behaviors after go-live.

The leader’s role is not easy. First, sometimes leaders have to address their own reactions to change before they can be good role models. Second, people tend to ask tough questions, which can be difficult or uncomfortable to answer. Third, sometimes leaders need to modify the direction and reinforcement they provide to others. They have to be comfortable encouraging new High-Impact Behaviors.

If you are an advisor, you can help ready the leaders:

•  Talk with leaders about their personal reactions and how to prepare themselves to lead.
• Rehearse the tough questions people are likely to ask.
• Equip leaders with practical strategies to address the uncomfortable situations and emotions that might occur—confusion, frustration, fear, anger.
• Help leaders understand the High-Impact Behaviors needed after go-live and develop strategies for encouraging those behaviors

Ready the People

All employees are decision-makers during change. They choose how thoroughly to become engaged. People can lose up to two hours of productive time each day talking with colleagues, tracking down information and rumors, speculating, etc. Change leadership means acknowledging the uncertainty change brings, helping people deal with uncertainty, and preparing them for the future.

Some reasons people struggle with change include:

They don’t understand how the change fits with other priorities.

• They’ve seen the organization attempt something similar and then abandon the effort.
• They fear losing something important (their job, their friends, their status, their flexibility, etc.).
•  They don’t understand what to do differently, or what they are being asked to do conflicts with what someone else expects them to do.
• They aren’t convinced the change will help them achieve the results for which they are accountable.

Preparing people for change means putting yourself in their shoes and understanding how the change impacts them. It also means listening to their questions and ideas. Finally, it means knowing what High-Impact Behaviors you need them to do differently and making sure those behaviors are reinforced.

If you are an advisor, you can help ready the people:

• Listen to people’s questions and concerns, and encourage leaders to talk with employees.
• Encourage leaders to welcome questions and concerns and avoid seeing them as “resistance” or “whining.”
• Create forums for employees to offer ideas and input. They know the organization, its customers, and how work gets done. They have great ideas about the High-Impact Behaviors needed after go-live and meaningful ways to reinforce those behaviors

Ready for Results

Ultimately, success is determined by results. Here are a few questions to ask to make sure the change is on the right track.

• Is the sponsor successfully influencing key stakeholders?
• Are leaders listening and talking with employees about the issues that matter?
• Do leaders and employees know what High-Impact Behaviors matter most after go-live?
• Are the High-Impact Behaviors occurring? Are they being reinforced?
• Are results moving in the right direction?

By asking these questions and acting on the answers, advisors can help people not only get ready for change but also achieve high levels of performance after go-live.”

Tracy Thurkow, Ph.D., is a partner at Continuous Learning Group Inc. (http://www.clg.com). An expert in the behavioral implications of large-scale organizational change initiatives, including Six Sigma, Dr. Thurkow has worked with numerous Fortune 100 companies to improve their performance across a variety of challenge areas. She has assisted leaders in some of the business world’s largest and most well-known organizations across a variety of industries, including oil and gas, telecommunications, financial services, industrial products, and package delivery. Dr. Thurkow earned a doctorate and Master’s degree in industrial/organizational psychology with an emphasis in behavioral analysis, along with a minor in business at Auburn University. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a minor in business management, from Western Michigan University.