#2 From Poison to Remedy: Transformations and Change Management 101

Transformations help companies innovate with the times, but without change management, it can become the dose that makes the poison. In this episode of Change, Actually, we learn what change management is and how it works with all the other moving pieces and players required for successful transformations.

Transcript

The Remedy for the Dose That Makes the Poison: Change Management 101

Description: 

Transformations help companies innovate with the times, but without change management, it can become the dose that makes the poison. In this episode of Change, actually, we learn what change management is and how it works with all the other moving pieces and players required in successful transformations.

Over the last decade, companies have found themselves in a bit of a pickle. At any given time, they’re navigating a major transformation to keep up with a rapidly innovating world.  Here's the catch: These transformations are absolutely necessary, but done without change management, these transformations become the dose that makes the poison. A poison that saps companies of productivity, staff, profits…costs that easily rack up to millions per transformation. 

So what is change management? 

Welcome to “Change, Actually”— I’m your host, Hillary Chan. In this podcast, we explore what change is and practical strategies for transformation. Strategies that can help your organization and you, a growing professional. Because let’s face it, there’s always room for growth.  If this sounds like you, subscribe/follow the podcast. 

To understand all the moving parts of a transformation and the role change management plays in it, humour me with this analogy. 

Imagine an airport: the planes, the runway, the pilots, and air traffic control. Each plane is a transformation. This could be a new IT platform your company is trying to launch. And the builders of that plane along with the pilot can be a mixed bag of people. Typically, it would be your product owners, project managers, UX designers, and other Subject Matter Expert leads. The cross-functional team that supports the technical parts of the transformation.  

And the passengers in the plane? They are your end users and all those impacted by the transformation. 

The executives backing the change can be seen as the airline leadership—they decide where each aircraft will fly and land and give the go for pulling in teams as needed for the destination to be reached. 

You might be thinking: “Ok so the planes can just fly, arrive, end of story. What’s your point, Hillary?”

Well if that is the case, there would be a lot of crashing and planes possibly landing in a place where someone will realize they’re not in Kansas anymore.  Along with that, you’ll find passengers who are upset and who leave the plane, even if its not their choice.

Which leads us to the next set of questions: What do we need for that plane to land smoothy at the intended destination? Afterall, who will ensure passengers receive the right messages when there is turbulence or a need for a quick fuel up? Who will guide the pilots of the flight route and where they’re going? Who will ensure the safe landing? Who will advise if that plane is needed in the first place? Who will see if there are other planes that may need to be created and flown to new hot spots? 

Most importantly: Who needs to think about all of these questions and engage the right people to address it and ensure it happens?

Duh-duh-duh-duh-duhhhhhh: Change Managers!

At this point, you might be saying wait, but that’s a lot of different roles. Yup. 

In itself, change management is a multi-faceted way of ensuring transformations land where they need to. All those involved in the transformation have a part to play in change management. But change management isn’t owned by any one role, it’s the fascia of transformation—the connective tissue that helps all the muscles required for the transformation work together for desired outcome. 

Change managers build that fascia; A Change Manager engages the necessary parties--the pilots, the passengers, the airline leadership, and so forth--to orchestrate how the change advances and is implemented. 

And while there are tools and structured ways to do it, change management, when done right, covers that in addition to engaging the right people at the right time.  Change Management isn’t only about effective engagement--but it will fail without it. 

In order to foresee the “turbulence” that may slow down a change, what we typically call “resistance”, you need to hear the voice of the people the change involves and impacts. And we need to have a nuanced, but stepwise approach in your engagement.  At the end of the day, change managers facilitate the buy-in that’s needed.  Change management requires effective communication, training, leadership alignment, coaching, stakeholder engagement, and analytical work—all the while, representing the interests of key voices ---all of this orchestration to ensure the plane, the transformation, lands safely and accurately.  In future episodes, we’ll dig into practical change management tips and strategies for these areas. 

It's no magic, though, it can feel like it because it turns a costly gamble into an objectively safe arrival. There’s an art to it and a science. A mixed bag of human & organizational behavioural psychology, soft skills, and logical, analytical approaches. 

In the last five years alone, organizations have undertaken digital transformation efforts, but less than a third of them are improving performance or generating intended results. Results like full user adoption, creating the return on investment, etc. So it is no surprise why companies are building centres of excellence for organizational change, bringing change managers in as essential workers to help them ensure their investments are seeing the light of day.    

Have you experienced or are you currently experiencing a transformation or change at work that felt confusing or even, chaotic? Take a moment to think about it. What could have been done differently to make that change land more smoothly—for you, your team, or the organization?  Keep that in mind as we explore change management in future episodes.

If you work in change or need some help with it, stay posted on all things change by tuning into “Change, Actually”, every other Tuesday. I also invite you to share your questions with me—see the episode description on how.

Remember: Transformations are inevitable for the success of a business, but wasted efforts aren’t.  Change how you approach it: change, actually.