Change Whisperer on ProjectManagement.com

Strategy is integral in both sports and business. Furthermore, the dynamics of competition are universal. In sports, every game is a full cycle. What can sports teach us about improving execution? Here are a few observations:

1. Grit wins over brains every day—but neither alone is enough for the long run. 
2. Anything can happen. Play is dynamic. Never assume. Always be ready.
3. Every event affects momentum (every play, every hit, every heckle). Lean in to positive, brace through negative, focus on realization objectives.
4. Plays are important. Competencies are essential. Synergy drives higher performance.
5. Play through (not to). Impact does not generate results; follow-through does.
6. Playing and watching are different. Players know. Great leaders (advisors) have played.
7. There’s only one coach. Players, parents, and spectators (employees, managers, and extended leadership teams) commit or leave.
8. Your perspective depends on your position. Great leaders speak to every perspective (forward/defense, rookie/veteran, coach/parent, beginning/end of game, winning/losing).
9. Skin in the game strengthens commitment (ambition, grudges, purses/bonuses).
10. Records are made to be broken. We can always do better.

Have you got more? Let’s hear them. Comments welcome.

We all have a “library” of resources we’ve read that have shaped our thinking and practice, which we reference. These are the books I reference. There are (many) more on my bookshelves but these are ones I recommend. My top four are in bold. (I couldn’t narrow it down to three.)  If you don’t see your favorites please share them in the comments section.

Business Planning:

• “Corporate Canaries: Avoid Business Disasters with a Coal Miner’s Secrets,” Gary Sutton, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 2005
• “The Definitive Business Plan,” Richard Stutely, Prentice Hall, Great Britain, Revised Edition 2007

Change Execution:

• “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done,” Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, Crown Business, NY, 2002
• “How Organizations Work: Taking a Holistic Approach to Enterprise Health,” Alan P. Brache, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2002

Change Management:

• “ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and Our Community,” Jeffrey M. Hiatt, Prosci Research Inc., Loveland, CO, 2006
• “Beyond Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today’s Transformational Leaders,” Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson, Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA, 2001
• “The Change Leader’s Roadmap: How to Navigate Your Organization’s Transformation,” Dean Anderson and Linda S. Ackerman Anderson, Pfeiffer, San Francisco, CA, 2001
• “Change the Way You Lead Change,” David M. Herold and Donald B. Fedor, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2008
• “The Dance of Change,” Peter Senge, Random House Inc., NY, NY, 1999
• “It Starts with One,” J. Stewart Black and Hal Gregersen, Wharton School Publishing, New Jersey, 2008
• “Leading Change,” John P. Kotter, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 1996
• “Managing at the Speed of Change: How Resilient Managers Succeed and Prosper Where Others Fail,” Daryl Conner, Random House, New York, 1992, 2006
• “Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change,” William Bridges, Da Capo Press, USA, 2003
• “Project Change Management: Applying Change Management to Improvement Projects,” H. James Harrington, Daryl R. Conner, Nicholas L. Horney, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2000
• “Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard,” Chip and Dan Heath, Random House, Canada, 2010

Corporate Governance:

• “What Directors Need to Know: Corporate Governance 2003,” Carol Hansell, Thomson Carswell, Toronto, Canada, 2003

Communication:

• “The Back of the Napkin,” Dan Roam, Penguin Group, New York, 2008
• “Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time,” Susan Scott, Berkley Books, NY, 2004
• “Mind Maps at Work,” Tony Buzan, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., London, UK, 2004
• “Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences,” Nancy Duarte, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., NJ, 2010

Culture:

• “As One: Individual Action, Collective Power,” Mehrdad Baghai and James Quigley, Penguin Group, NY, 2011

• “Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework,” Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, 2006

Decision Support:

• “The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking,” Roger Martin, Harvard Business School Press, USA, 2007

Leadership:

• “How to Become a Great Boss: The Rules for Getting and Keeping the Best Employees,” Jeffery J. Fox, Hyperion, New York, 2002
• “Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment,” George Leonard, Penguin Books USA, Inc. New York, 1992

Negotiating:

• “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In,” Roger Fisher and William Ury, Penguin Books, New York, 1991
• “How to Get What you Want: The Negotiating Game,” Chester L. Karrass, Karrass Ltd., USA, 1992 

Organization Design and Development:

• “Leading at the Edge of Chaos: How to Create the Nimble Organization,” Daryl R. Conner, John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, 1998

Project Management:

• Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition, Project Management Institute, 2004

Socio-Political-Economic:

• “Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking,” Malcolm Gladwell, Little Brown and Company, New York, 2005
• “Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything,” Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, HarperCollins Publishers Inc. New York, 2005
• “Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883,” Simon Winchester, Perennial Classics, NY, 2005
• “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” Malcolm Gladwell, Little Brown and Company, New York, 2000
• “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,” Thomas L. Friedman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2005

Strategic Marketing:

• “The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth,” Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., 2003
• “The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development,” Milton D. Rosenau, Jr., Abbie Griffin, George A. Castellion, Ned F. Anschuetz, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1995

Strategic Planning:

• “Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant,” W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass, 2005
• “Competing for the Future,” Gary Hamel and C.K. Pralahad, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass, 1996
• “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t,” Jim Collins, HarperCollins Publishers Inc. New York, 2001
• “The Future of Management,” Gary Hamel, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Agency, 2007
• “Re-Imagine!: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age,” Tom Peters, Dorling Kindersley Limited, USA, 2003
• “Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes,” Robert P. Kaplan and David P. Norton, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Mass., 2004

What’s on your bookshelf?

Few organizations have figured out how to do strategy execution well.  One of the enigmas of implementation continues to be the gap between project management and change management.  This post is a review of a new book that tackles this very challenge. The Next Evolution—Enhancing and Unifying Project and Change Management: The Emergence One Method for Total Project Success is by Thomas Jarocki (Brown & Williams Publishing LLC, NJ, USA, 2011).

First off, this is a book by a consulting and training firm about its methodology.  In many respects it is a sales tool.  However, it also offers solid reviews of both project and change management and a view on how they can be integrated for better results.  It is a great read for any leader or practitioner who thinks he or she knows either subject well or who is looking for ways to improve integration and overall Strategy Execution.

Jarocki does have his biases and they are well described and generally well defended.  There are many places where I disagree or would expand.  However, in my mind, that is a wonderful thing.  Books such as this provide a platform, a level plateau, for all of us to take footing on, to challenge our own biases and to potentially expand our own approaches. 

This book is actually quite reminiscent of “Project Change Management: Applying Change Management to Improvement Projects” (1) co-written by our Chairman, Daryl Conner, which Jarocki references. However, he further details a structured PM-driven methodology. 

Why should we care?

Jarocki clearly defines the case for innovation. Many of the phrases in the preface really resonated with me:

• “… total project success is not only about delivering on time, within budget and according to spec.  Total project success also means ensuring that the fruits of the effort are fully adopted by the organization, and that the business value realization is achieved promptly and decisively.” So true—many PMs seem to believe that the triple constraint will lead to realization and it does not automatically do so.  In fact, most often the business results don’t start to materialize until after the project team is disassembled.
• “Rather than complement each other, these two critical project disciplines often wind up competing with each other over roles and responsibilities …” This feels very déjà vu.  In my own experience, most relatively mature organizations have implemented project management capability in some form or another; very few have organized change management capability and fewer still have integrated these or innovated beyond integration.
• “many assumptions, models and approaches that project managers and change managers rely on are actually decades old and are simply not well matched for many of today’s faster-paced companies.” Yes.  There is much opportunity for innovation.

To the degree that execution still leaves ROI on the table every leader and practitioner must be diligent in finding better ways to deliver change.

Great debate

Experienced business leaders, change management and project management practitioners will recognize many of the core challenges that Jarocki discusses.  Three caught my attention: the differences between theory and practice, which discipline should lead, and what is the current state of change management and where is it going.

Theory and Practice:

A charge is often leveled against change management that it is too theoretical—too difficult to apply broad concepts.  Jarocki notes that “John Kotter’s eight-step model is an excellent model for executives involved in leading transformation change.  But for a standard, incremental change project such as an IT upgrade, the model offers little concrete guidance on the specific change management activities project team members would need to engage in conjunction with other project activities.” (p61). I would go a step further to say that even, or perhaps particularly, transformational change requires “concrete guidance” and that few strategy execution approaches can satisfy.

Jarocki’s combined method is very tactical, very focused on implementation. It offers a single process, modified to blend project management and change management together. It is a highly structured, “how to” process that draws heavily from Jarocki’s EFP implementation experience. (This is not the only structured approach to change management by the way—Prosci has offered a well-documented methodology for years that is great for transitional change and integrates fairly easily into projects.)

 Who leads:

The “Project Triad” (the role governance between sponsor, project manager, and change leader) is an interesting discussion on the dynamics between the three (p116). There is a strong bias to project management as the dominant discipline, “leading,” which has friction for me. A quote from Seth Godin rings in my head: “As usual, when confronted with two obvious choices, it’s the third choice that pays.” (“Trading in your pain”).

In my world (and Conner Partners’ world), the only legitimate “leader” is the business. All implementation resources serve the business (the leader in whose division the results will accrue, not necessarily the division with the budget). We do not lead, we serve. Notwithstanding this, Jarocki does provide some great insights as to the challenges in getting the business to lead well.

State and direction of change management:

In the sections “Current Trends in Change Management” (p57) and “Why Change Management has failed to deliver” (p60), Jarocki makes some very caustic remarks about change management. Some are legitimate and some I take issue with.

• My own point of departure is the paragraph that most resonates with me: “Change management is a less mature discipline than is project management, and there are no widely recognized governing bodies, nor is there even much clarity about what actually constitutes “change management.” Therefore, the field of change management is paradoxically evolving and “devolving” simultaneously” (p57). This is a fair assessment. 
• True, there are no currently “widely recognized governing bodies” but this underestimates the emergence of two organizations gaining global traction extraordinarily quickly: The Association of Change Management Practitioners and the Change Management Institute (with an excellent Competency Model, by the way). 
• The difference in maturity between the disciplines, in my opinion, is partly due to longevity and partly due to the fact that change management deals with far more complexity than does project management. Project management deals with the quantitative mechanics of implementation—those relatively more measureable and predictable tasks. Change management, on the other hand, addresses the very dynamic intangibles (usually labeled innocuously as “adoption”) that actually encompass complex individual and organizational motivations. This is the reason why we all, even Jarocki (p40), write our own definitions of change management, to contextualize what we are trying to accomplish. Jarocki’s agenda, though, is given away in his first line “To help project management…”
• Jarocki’s bias to project management as the dominant discipline takes on full steam in these sections. Further to my thoughts on “Who Leads” above, in an ideal world I disagree—it is not project management. Actually, neither project management nor change management should drive—both must serve. Only the business leader whose department is responsible for accruing the benefits of the change has the legitimate right to lead. This requires different mindsets—realization focused not installation focused. And, by the way, neither PM or CM is sufficient—patching them together still leaves gaping holes.
• We have moved our own methodology further—to focus on Strategy Execution and incorporate additional capabilities. In application, we meet organizations where they are. Sometimes we are retained to build execution capability, sometimes to run transformational change and sometimes to remediate failing programs. An organization facing transformational change does not always have bandwidth to renovate its approach to execution. We make execution recommendations, with full disclosure as to the implications we foresee, and fully support the executive’s decisions. More on advancements in our thought leadership on Daryl Conner’s blog Change Thinking (2).

Summary—read the book

This is an important discussion. I recommend this book to practitioners in both fields. We all think we know what the other does, but Jarocki provides us with a level playing field to discuss against. No one will agree with all of the points, but this is where the real opportunities lie for all of us to explore and expand our capability.

References:

(1)    “Project Change Management: Applying Change Management to Improvement Projects”, H. James Harrington, Daryl R. Conner, Nicholas L. Horney, McGraw-Hill, New York, 2000

(2)    Change Thinking Blog, Daryl Conner,

These are the best online movies, webinars and podcasts on Change Management that we have found (many recommended by other practitioners through LinkedIn Discussions) and we will update it as we discover others.  If you know of more great ones please add by commenting.

• “Change is good … you go first”  (please search “Change is good movie” for some reason I cannot keep this link working)
• “Bronze Age Orientation Day” Monty Python here
• “Piano Staircase – can we make more people use the stairs by making it fun?” The Fun Theory here
• “Who moved my cheese” the movie here  
• “Did you know?” (re speed of change) here
• Daryl Conner continues the brilliant work published in his previous books (“Managing at the Speed of Change” and “Leading at the Edge of Chaos”) through webinars here (and on his blog here )
• “What is Organizational Change Management” Luc Galoppin here (and on his blog here)
• Peter de Jager has several relevant webinars and podcasts here 

Related to change but not specific to Change Management: 

• “FISH!”  here (re culture)
• “Lead like the great conductors” Itay Talgam here (re leadership)
• “How great leaders inspire action” Simon Sinek here (re leadership, vision)

Are you building internal capability? Retaining external consultants to execute an initiative?  There are few credentials in the market for Change Management and no turnkey solutions for building capability. 

This post was originally published as Change Management Credentials.  It will be updated from time to time and serve as a repository as we can gather a list (and this is just a list, not an endorsement).

Professional Associations:

• Association of Change Management Professionals
• Change Management Institute
• Organization Change Alliance (Atlanta, GA, USA)

Accreditations – certification and degree programs:

• Centre for Change Management. They also run an online module based program
• Consulting & Coaching for Change , University of Oxford, HEC Oxford
• Creativity, Innovation and Change, The Open University, B822
• Change Leadership Certificate (online), Cornell University
• Change Management Certification Program, Prosci Learning
• Change Management Foundation, APMG-UK
• Graduate Certificate in Change Management, Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM)
• Masters Degree in the Neuroscience of Leadership, NeuroLeadership Institute – all online
• Masters Degree in Strategic Change Management and Organizational  Leadership, Pfeiffer University in Charlotte, NC. They also have an online program

Many consulting firms also offer certification programs.  Conner Partners offers both Sponsor and Agent certifications, Levels 1-3.  Drop me a line if you are interested in more info [email protected].

The best credential?  Experience – find someone who has done this before – as illustrated by my all-time favourite quote from the “West Wing”:

Leo McGarry: “This guy’s walkin’ down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, “Hey you! Can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, “Father, I’m down in this hole; can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. “Hey, Joe, it’s me. Can ya help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, “Are ya stupid? Now we’re both down here.” The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.”

Capability is great. Credentials are great.  Credentials plus experience – better.  Credential, plus experience, plus great referrals – better still.

Do you know of any other great CM courses or training credentials?  Please share.