Transformation & Leadership - Insider Tips

Involving people in the organizational change initiative is often an afterthought – after the change plan is ready for implementation.  However, this assumes that you can engage people whenever you desire, and the outcome will be the same.  Wrong!

There are five levels of involvement that can occur at different times when planning and implementing the change initiative.  Choosing when to involve stakeholders may depend on confidentiality and sensitivity, but the decision is often a reactive choice made without much thought. 

The five levels of involvement are:

1. Telling – mandate the change (good luck!)
2. Selling – convince them of the benefit to them and organization (traditional)
3. Testing – bounce ideas off them to get their reaction
4. Consulting – bring them into the planning process by asking for their advice
5. Co-creating – make them part of the planning team – full buy-in

Too often, change managers would like to shortcut the process by using #1 – telling.  However, they know they will get immediate push-back so they undertake #2 – selling.  An entire communication plan is built around raising awareness of the problem and pushing for a decision-balance in favor of the planned change and the change process already put in place.  Both #1 and #2 are initiated after the change plan is prepared and ready for implementation.  You can expect better engagement with selling than telling, but it still a hard job because most people will be at Stage 1 (unaware of the problem) or 2 (uncertain of the costs and potential benefit) of the Stages of Change.

If there is already some fear of resistance, some change managers will test ideas (#3) on those impacted to understand the degree of probable resistance so a resistance plan can be prepared.  This testing would be done part way through the change planning process when the change objective is already established, after the stakeholder analysis raises some worries about the degree of impact on certain groups of people. 

Involvement level 4 – consulting – starts to bring people into the planning process but not with full membership.  The key is learning from those most impacted by any changes, and better still, learning what you do not know, that you need to know (before you learn it the hard way).  One way of thinking about involvement at this level and the next is – Go slow early to go fast later.  Time spent working with stakeholders early will save time later with quicker implementation and less resistance.

Best of all is Level 5 – co-creating where those impacted by the change take control over their situation and play key roles in setting the change objective and deciding on the best change process to employ.  While the change sponsor may not be in control, the result can be shepherded by clarifying the problem situation and articulating any constraints the organization may be facing.  One challenge using this level of involvement occurs when confidentiality or some degree of secrecy is required.  If this is the case, there may be a need to back off a level or two, knowing that some efficiency may be sacrificed for feasibility. 

How you involve people in the change process is a choice – that often leads to how successful the change initiative will be. 

Moving to Action:

1. Where are you in your current project?
   • Project & challenge clarification?
   • Formulating a solution (Objective)?
   • Preparing an Implementation Plan?
   • Implementation already underway?
2. What Level of Involvement have you used?  Or considering using?
3. What is preventing you from moving to a higher level of involvement?
4. What changes should you make now to increase your chances of success?

Our blog Shifting Change: Insider Tips from Project Leaders is turning one year old!

Since the first welcome post on the 7 March 2019, we published a total of 34 articles (nearly 3/month!) for a total of almost six thousand views. This amazing result was made possible thanks to the 14 authors who occasionally or regularly wrote engaging articles on the topic of change management in all its shades.

Our authors discuss a wide spectrum of topics ranging from creativity (our most-read article by Walter Vandervelde) to creating a culture of appreciation, from how to sponsor change to capability development, from personal resilience to how to be a rock star project manager on digital transformation. And many more!

The response from the community has been wonderful with a total of 200 comments to the articles by blog readers. This shows the interest and need for engaging discussions around the topic of change management and the importance of sharing knowledge within the community.

Huge thanks to our amazing authors for sharing their experiences and tips with us and to the change management community of practice team for editing the blog. We’re always open to new topics and authors so if you’re interested to contribute, please get in touch with Luisa Cristini.

Welcome to the third in this series of blogs exploring what the project world can learn from neuroscience

Handle a change request badly and you can trigger a stress cycle that adds layers of complexity to project delivery.

Stakeholders changing their minds can be exasperating – especially when you think you’ve  finally tied everything down!  Everyone in the project profession recognises the risk of scope creep. Far fewer recognise that their response to a change request is important too.

Your response to a change request matters

When a stakeholder changes their mind it’s crucial we don’t let it wind us up. Why?

When we are stressed or upset we find it harder to regulate our emotions and keep our Thinking brain online [1]. This can lead to a chain reaction – a ‘project stress cycle’ – that amplifies stress levels and sets hares running – making it far more difficult to achieve  successful project outcomes.

Read on to find out how to spot a project stress cycle and what to do about it if you are caught in one.  Then check out the video conversation for a summary.

What is a Project Stress Cycle?

Picture Fred a senior project team member. Things are not going his way. He’s getting increasingly frazzled.

He is holding it together but doesn’t realise how stressed he is. This most recent change request was last straw – he is snapping at everyone and finding it harder to act in a rational manner.

The Project Stress Cycle

Source: Project Delivery, Uncertainty and Neuroscience - A Leader's Guide to Walking in Fog [2]

The impact on those around him is palpable. No one wants to provoke an outburst, so they give him a wide berth. And of course, after a bruising meeting it’s hard to keep your own Thinking brain online. Trust is falling across the piece and relationships and communication are suffering.

When the project started Fred and his colleagues went out of their way to highlight the need to invest time in building relationships and ensuring people worked well together. They repeatedly reminded the team ‘successful delivery relies on collaboration and creativity’.

But now the pressure is on and metrics are the primary focus. As relationships get strained collaboration is more difficult. Rather than waste time struggling to work together people are falling back into old habits and old silos. They are relying on approaches that worked in the past. But without quality collaboration it’s hard to be truly creative.

And the word on the street? The project is unlikely to achieve the desired outcomes – which does nothing for stress levels.

Powerful stakeholders are getting nervous. They are demanding more and more information in slightly different formats to reassure themselves that things are under control. These demands distract the team from the work they should be doing and add to the stress.

They have less time and less inclination to work collaboratively and the preoccupation with spreadsheets and metrics is forcing them to adopt behaviours that reduce the chance of success and multiply stress – right across the system.

In telling this story I have illustrated how one person’s response to a change request can increase the complexity of delivery. Yet this is a simplification of what happens in real life. Real life involves many stakeholders and many responses to a single change request – not all of them proportionate or rational.

I’m not suggesting that stress is a bad thing – a little goes a long way. (I don’t know about you, but I’m suspicious of dashboards that only show green flags).

TAKEAWAYS

We need to be on the look out for signs of excess stress and we need to be looking for patterns. It’s not enough to keep an eye on how individuals, (including ourselves) are responding to change requests. We need to be checking how project boards and project teams are responding too.

I’ve written elsewhere about the need for psychological safety [3]. A lack of it is often an indicator of things going awry.

Excess Stress can trigger a cycle that plays out across the wider project system and impact delivery

Next time a stakeholder changes their mind

• Press the pause button
• Check out how you are feeling about this news
• Do you need to do anything to bring your Thinking brain online?

If you suspect there’s a project stress cycle at work,

• Name it – with the intention of checking out whether others can see it too.
• Use the diagram above, or the story of Fred to test the ground.

You’ll be amazed at how quickly things can shift once you’ve got a way to describe what is really going on!

SUMMARY

Check out this video clip for a summary. 

As this is the first time I've included a video clip in a blog here,  please use the comments below to let me know whether it's helpful and whether I should do so again.

BLOGS IN THIS SERIES

• What Can the Project World Learn from Neuroscience?
• SCARF a Brain–based Model for Managing People on Projects
• PM Point of View Episode 69: Neuroscience in Project Management  Carole Osterweil in conversation with Kendall Lott (starts 40 mins in)

and coming soon

• Corona Reducing Personal Uncertainty
• Corona Reducing Team Uncertainty

REFERENCES

[1] Osterweil, C. (2016). Using Insights from Brain Science to Manage Projects and Influence Change -. [online] Visible Dynamics. Available at: https://www.visibledynamics.co.uk/using-insights-from-brain-science-to-manage-projects-and-influence-change/ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2020].

[2] Osterweil, C (2019) Project Delivery, Uncertainty and Neuroscience – a Leader’s Guide to Walking in Fog, London: Visible Dynamics

[3] Osterweil, C. (2017). Self-protection is natural and psychological safety is king! -. [online] Visible Dynamics. Available at: https://www.visibledynamics.co.uk/project-psychological-safety-google/ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2020].

The 2020 strategic planning session has just wrapped up and the CEO says to the executive team, “Let’s raise a glass and celebrate some really strong work.  Now that the ‘hard part’ is done all we have to do is drive these 28 initiatives through the organization.” 

Over coffee the next morning the CEO seems a little less sure if planning is the ‘hard part’.  He feels confident with the strategic plan and budget; but wonders if he has the talent and skills to deliver in today’s turbulent times?  How do you know if the implementation team’s capability is dated in the past, lodged in the present, or open to the future? 

Let’s consider a few straight forward questions to assess the era that you are taking a giant leap into: 

Past:                     Is communication and training the extent of your implementation approach?  Do you have the skilled resources in place to deliver beyond the basics?

Present:               Is your approach still locked into the tools and techniques from the 20^th
century?  Are you in an echo chamber of the same approaches and conferences that you have used for the last twenty years?

Future:                 Are you reaching out to new ‘voices’ and different perspectives to keep abreast of today’s rapidly evolving research in the arts and sciences?  Does your organization have the curiosity and mindset to be open to new approaches?

Questions for leading change in the 21^st century.  What era are you in?

We all want to be positive, embrace an optimistic future, and focus on possibilities.  This is especially true in managing projects and introducing change into an organization.  We see the possibilities at the other end of the change, it can be exciting . . . however, the change can’t simply be declared and expected to happen.  The journey needs to be led and managed.

In leading and managing change, take some time to look back.  It’s what I call “taking time to leverage failure” – simply so we learn and improve continuously.  And, in our years helping lead and manage change we have had a lot of failure to leverage.  We want you to be the beneficiary of our learnings.

We have found that there are key behaviors at the Organization, Team and Personal levels that are critical for any change journey.

Organizational Behavior

“Here it comes, another ill-conceived program.” Many communications from the leadership team leave employees wondering about priorities, impacts, and expected outcomes. When an organization effectively manages change, the leadership team agrees on the intent of strategy execution, successfully engages employees to adapt to the change and implement decisions, and willingly reaches throughout the organization to help employees handle the implementation.

Team Behavior

Without healthy team behaviors, team members end up pointing fingers at one another, and devolve into counterproductive, time wasting rituals. Effective teams work together quickly to achieve goals. This requires healthy conflict to engage and discuss difficult topics, commitment to the team’s purpose, and a willingness to hold one another accountable for outcomes.

Personal Behavior

We’ve all seen cartoons depicting the disheveled executive. When you look beneath the appearance, you see an ineffective, guarded individual who doesn’t deliver. Conversely, effective executives are open, vulnerable, accept risk, and speak with honest candor with others.

Here are five characteristics of an organization that effectively manages change. How does your organization stack up?

1. The leadership team agrees on the outcomes of decisions.
2. Priorities are clear to the organization.
3. The organizational impacts of decisions are understood by those impacted.
4. Front line employees are involved in implementing the decision.
5. Leaders coach employees through the implementation of the decision.

Looking at every project through this five-pronged lens is key to your success. Thinking about both project structures and behaviors at each of the three levels, organizational, team and individual ensures that you are comprehensively considering every element of your project teams’ make-up to ensure success.