Why Change Initiatives Don’t Work

Change Programmes, Change Initiatives, Transformational Change Programmes – lots of different titles for making a change in business, and there are many more.  So why is it that very many of these change management activities fail?  It doesn’t really matter which sector we consider, some form of change activity will have taken place recently, will be in planning or will be due to start in most businesses.  Competent business leaders know that in order to survive and grow they need to upgrade their products and services and changing the way they operate is no different as the operational side of a business, i.e. the way it does what it does, needs to fit with its output.  So if we accept that change is necessary, why do so many initiatives fail to live up to expectations?

Not Enough Time – Quite simply, despite extensive efforts to work out what makes sense to change, piloting changes and communicating with all who need to know, impatience can still win the day.  The change can be deemed a failure if it doesn’t deliver quickly and something else, another change, is started in its place.  What of course this misses is that for all but the most basic of changes it takes time to really see the benefits of a change coming through in improved sales, reduced costs, faster turn-round of inventory or whatever it is that needs improving.  So, give the change enough time to become the new ‘business as usual’ and measure what needs to be measured to confirm whether or not there was a benefit or not.

Wrong Changes Made – Insufficient analysis up front as to what needs to change can be an absolute disaster if it means that processes or organisational structures change that were working perfectly well in the first place.  This does not mean that you should spend months and months analyzing a situation, paralysis can come about through too much analysis, but it does mean taking sufficient time to gauge what is really going on.  So how best to do this?  Engage with those people and groups who really know how things are and can help design the change.  This could be your own employees but equally could be your suppliers and customers.  Explain to them what you perceive the issue to be and what you want to achieve and they will let you know what they think.

Changed Priorities – The business environment is constantly changing and each company needs to stay ahead of the game in order to survive and grow.  So, if something needs to change then that is not a problem in its own right providing it is the right change and is implemented correctly.  The problem here is when one change comes on the back of another which has hardly had time to become the norm and the new change has unintended impacts on the original.  Employees can become extremely weary of continuous change that they may see as change for the sake of change and if this happens the engagement you want from them will slowly evaporate.  So, don’t overdo the change thing, keep it to only when you really need to change something.

Ego Led Change – Surely the worst kind of change that can happen within a business.  Many leaders believe that in order to make an impact and become known within their organizations (or indeed sectors) they must make a change as soon as they arrive.  After all, why have they been brought in if not to improve on their predecessor?  And to be seen to be doing something significant it goes without saying that the changes that have to be made have to be significant too.  Significant changes made with insufficient analysis to boost the ego and job prospects of leaders can have catastrophic effects on productivity and morale.  How to avoid it?  Make sure you recruit the right person for the job and ensure their objectives and targets make sense – never easy.

Changes can be made that really benefit businesses in the way they operate and improve profitability.  Avoid making changes too often, expecting immediate improvements as soon as a change is made, making the wrong change and letting leaders instigate a change just to show that they can and there is a great chance that if you need to make a change it will be a success.

© Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Processes That Really Work

Processes surround everything we do in business but how often do you find that the process you are expected to follow just doesn’t makes sense because it’s too complicated or simply wrong?  If your answer is ‘yes’ then you are not alone, many people get really frustrated with inappropriate processes or ones that just don’t make sense.

If we look at what makes a business process useful we can perhaps start to identify why some just don’t make the grade.

• Appropriate – a process needs to be appropriate for what it’s intended to achieve.  It needs to be defined to a level that the majority of people who have to use it can understand what to do and NOT down to the n^th degree with loads of unnecessary detail.  At the same time if there are obvious stages that need to be understood then include them and don’t wrap them up into one item that might be miss-understood.
• Understandable – touched on above but well worth bringing out separately.  A process that works only works because it’s appropriate to the needs of the job and is fully understood by those who operate it and are touched by it, e.g. customers.  If employees can’t really understand why parts of a process are as they are then they can’t be expected to explain to customers and suppliers why things are as they are.

So, if good processes are appropriate and understandable, how are they developed?  Use the expertise you have within your organization to develop or re-fresh your processes, after all your employees are the ones who know their pitfalls and the ways round so that things get done regardless of process – yes, this really does happen!  By all means bring in external assistance to help facilitate the development of processes and input suggestions but it’s your organization that needs to decide what a process needs to be and own it, not an external consultant.

‘good processes are appropriate and understandable’

Once your new process is captured and people who need to know about it have been suitably informed and/or trained (the process will fail if your employees don’t know things have changed) then it’s time to try it out in anger.  You may have trailed it and used simulations but don’t be surprised if the first time it’s used for real things don’t work as anticipated.  Not to worry about this, just build in a little time to refine until the process works as smoothly as can be expected, in other words the process is appropriate.

Of course nothing lasts forever and as other elements of your organization and business environment change it’s highly likely that your process will lose it’s appropriateness and need amending.  Don’t wait until you find out about this through a failure or complaint, build in regular process reviews, say annually just to check that all is still well.

‘build in regular process reviews’

Oh, and don’t forget that if you trust your people they will still ensure that your business operates seamlessly in the eyes of customers even if your processes aren’t quite right.  What you want is for those self same people to feel confident in coming forward and saying they bent the process for the good of the organization and the process needs to be modified accordingly.

 

© Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

KYSS – Keep Your Strategy Simple

So what is it that makes understanding business strategy so difficult and confusing for people?  If a business’s strategy is so fundamental to it’s growth and indeed survival surely it should be crystal clear for everyone who needs to know about it.

So, who needs to know and fully understand what the strategy is about and what it means?  Think of all the stakeholders involved in your business whether you are public or private or listed or not-for-profit.  If you list someone or a particular group as a stakeholder then they need to understand your strategy.  Does the way you communicate your strategy differ depending on who you are dealing with?  Well, it ought to but it must say the same thing – different audiences need different styles of communication.

If you list someone or a particular group as a stakeholder then they need to understand your strategy.

Don’t be tempted to bring in an outside organization to produce your strategy for you.  It’s only you and your people who know everything there is to know about your organization; where you want to get to and the way you intend going about it.  There are many consultancies out there who have a great deal of expertise in this area given that they see many businesses but if you do want to engage one of them make sure you are doing it for the right reasons and use them to help facilitate your strategy development process.

Once your strategy is nearing completion you should be able to test it for usefulness.  It should be readable and understandable to all stakeholders and it must hold their attention.  If it looks as though you will end up with a huge strategy document full of management cliches that no-one really understands but sounds good then you know that somewhere along the line the development process has gone off track.  Take the opportunity to correct it before going public both internally and externally and make sure you can answer the ‘What does that mean?’ question for each element of your strategy.

Your strategy should be readable and understood by all stakeholders – it must hold their attention.

A good strategy is one that is implementable and furthers the growth of the business, it’s not just a glossy that sits on the low tables in reception.  Having said this, in order to assist in the furthering of growth it is as much about communication as anything else.  If people in your business don’t understand it then there is no way you can hold them to account if their actions and decisions are not aligned with the strategy.

A good strategy is as much about communication as anything else.

Two simple checks of whether your Strategy is effective

1. Communication is key – Can you explain your Strategy in words of one syllable to others including board-members, co-workers, investors, suppliers, journalists and others.  It’s not their fault if implementation is not as expected or if confused messages get out if the Strategy wasn’t simple enough to understand.
2. Implement and Refine – A great Strategy is only great if it can be implemented when needed.  If your development process takes months and months and the big announcement is delayed so that you can publish large and complicated strategy documents then chances are the strategy will already have passed its ‘sell by date’.  Better to develop – implement – refine on a regular basis rather than spending 12 months or more coming up with something that is perfect for last year.

Having an understandable strategy that people can implement within a business seems like a simple thing to aspire to yet all too often the development of the strategy becomes an academic exercise that few can comprehend.  There is nothing wrong in business with explaining things in easily understandable language and the more you do so the better the chances that your people, customers and investors will know what you are talking about.

© Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Is there a Difference between Leading a Project and Leading a Business?

Well of course there is, these are completely different animals aren’t they?  Businesses are complex mixtures of owners, managers, leaders, investors, products and services and projects just have a start and an end.  Let’s look a little more carefully at projects though and see what’s really involved in their leadership.

Projects do indeed have a start and an end, well hopefully they do.  We’re all aware of larger projects that seem to generate a life of their own and become part of the business fabric without people realizing it.  For the most part though any project whether large or small can be characterized by:

• a set of requirements – what it has to deliver,
• a timescale – a schedule of delivery and waypoints to getting there,
• a budget for completion.

That sounds pretty simple really doesn’t it.  So why do so many projects fail in at least one of these three areas when all the Project Leader needs to do is agree upon what needs to be delivered, work out the timeline for delivery and get a budget agreed?

It’s pretty straightforward when everything that is required for project success is completely under the control of the person tasked with delivering that project.  In reality this only ever happens when that one individual can do all that is required to deliver the project by themselves.  In other words, in all but really small straightforward projects someone will have to Lead the project and that requires working with other people, often inside and outside the organization.  All those other people whether they are part of a Project Team (that needs leading) or are somewhere in the organization that has an interest either directly or indirectly with the project can influence it positively or negatively.

Common sense dictates, therefore, that the Project Leader will have to engage with these Stakeholders (horrible word but let’s not be afraid to introduce a little terminology).  Finance departments, senior Directors and even HR will be essential groups to maintain good relationships with to ensure budgets get approved, the project is made visible at the highest levels and the project gets the best people available to help its delivery.  But none of this is working directly on the Project itself, that’s left up to the Project Team to:

• deliver to the set of requirements,
• in the right timescales,
• to the budget agreed.

Providing the Project Leader gives sufficient guidance and spends an appropriate amount of time working ‘on the project‘ then it’s likely the project will be a success as all the Project Stakeholders will have been kept suitably informed and engaged.

So, is there a difference between leading a project and leading a business?

The answer is still ‘yes‘ but only because of the differences in the business requirements, the timescales involved and the budget, everything else is pretty much the same.  Business Leaders need to balance their time and effort between working on the business itself and keeping their Business Stakeholders suitably informed and engaged.

© Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Five Steps to Coaching Failure

Helping individuals or groups to change their outlook or behaviour which leads to demonstrable differences in their performance both at work and at home is what coaching is all about.  Whether it’s Executive or Life coaching the end product usually covers more aspects of an individual’s existence than was originally anticipated.  Having said this it’s all too easy to lose track of what that original purpose was whether working with an individual or a group.

The following Five Steps to Coaching Failure will serve as useful reminders of what not to do when working with coaching clients, any one of which can lead to an unsuccessful outcome.

1  Ignore the obvious signals

Whether you are coaching an individual or a group there are always those tell tale signs that something is not quite right.  An over-long silence on a phone call or nervous shuffling in the seat when dealing face-to-face usually mean there is something in what has just passed that is worth remembering for later or delving deeper.  When working with groups the dynamics that an experienced facilitator is used to picking up on – posture, open and closed body styles and rolling of eyes when particular individuals speak are far more expressive of what might be going on than the words being used.  Many leaders and senior managers are used to talking at length and expect others to listen.  They may or may not be articulate but they will need challenging otherwise they’ll keep on hogging the airtime to avoid dealing with the issues at hand.

2  Stick to your tried and trusted agenda

Any coaching engagement is likely to move into areas that can’t really be predicted so it’s not unreasonable to assume that a rigid agenda or programme followed by a coach is not going to succeed.  Planning out a route map after initial meetings with clients makes absolute sense, especially so if this is developed with the client.  Even if it just for the coach to start thinking ahead it can only help.  Where this approach goes wrong though is when the ‘Coaching Programme’ is followed to the letter regardless of what is covered during the coaching sessions.  Some people like the idea of following a pre-arranged course of specific sessions aimed at delivering them particular outcomes but this is not really coaching.

3  Don’t worry about failure

Coaches like other independents working ‘from the outside looking in’ have a great opportunity to see what co-workers or family members do not.  With that comes responsibility to provide objective feedback and appropriate challenge.  The idea that a coaching engagement will be a success regardless of whether it meet its initial aims or not because the coachee will always get something out of it is a dangerous one.  Always remember who your client is.  Is it the individual you are working with or is it the organization that brought you in to coach its people?  Confidentiality is paramount of course but you should never lose sight of the original set of requirements for the coaching engagement.  Easy to renegotiate with an individual if you are working one-to-one but more complex if that person is receiving the benefit of a coaching programme funded by their employer.

4  Trust in your own ability

No-one is incapable of improving their own performance.  That after all is why many people enter into coaching relationships so it shouldn’t be any different for coaches themselves.  Continuing Professional Development is talked about for many professions, indeed it’s mandated in some.  Learning new techniques, employing a coach yourself or researching related fields all will benefit the long-term performance of a coach.  Simply reflect on each coaching session using the following three questions.

1.  What worked,

2.  What didn’t go as well as planned,

3.  What wouldn’t you do again (and why)

From a coaches perspective this is an extremely effective way of taking stock of what’s just happened.  Even if you are coaching a number of individuals over the course of a day it’s definitely worth spending five minutes after each session and then again later on to review the whole day.

5  Stay with the here and now

When working closely with individuals, especially over a period of time, it is all too easy to get caught up in the here and now of that person’s work and/or life.  Even experienced coaches can at times be drawn in, which if not checked can render a session as no more useful than an idle chat.  Remembering what the initial objective was and considering how you might bring in something you have heard from a previous session or what new ‘challenges’ you can introduce will all help in this.  In many ways this is where telephone coaching can help as it’s far easier to refer to notes than when dealing with someone face to face.  The rough route map you put together to start with and perhaps added to over subsequent sessions will be a real benefit here.

These Five Steps to Coaching Failure will be familiar to most coaches.  They sound simple and obvious but they are all too easy to ‘achieve’ if you are not careful.  A quick check every now and again on how you have performed against these five might be useful.  If you work with a coach then think back to see if any of these situations have occurred during your sessions.  If they have then providing some appropriate feedback to your coach would seem to make sense.

© Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Paul Slater and Mushcado Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.