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change

Enterprise Change done right: keep your vision in mind

Alistair Russell · November 9, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Whatever the label used by our clients, be that transformation, digital, agile or change, fundamentally we see our purpose as enabling change. Laing Russell is about getting enterprise change done right.

Recent Bain & Company research endorsed our perspective that the central focus of any programme of work in this area should focus on changing the behaviours of the human beings. In contrast to what is often taught on MBAs and promoted by the writers of airport business books, our insight is that enterprise change is complicated and it is unhelpful to reduce the complexity of the real world to simplistic, predictive Newtonian models.

There are many useful models and thinking frameworks that we use to focus and structure clearer, more productive conversations about what to do as leaders of change. Our recent experience is that the foundation for us all is to persist with a clear vision in mind. Success comes from using that shared and explicit clarity of your desired outcome, your vision, to guide your actions in leading change.

In building that shared, explicit clarity on the vision, the framework developed by John Kotter is better than many in creating a checklist to get you started. The focus on a sense of urgency, as Kotter describes it, is key. A critical early step is to develop that clarity around what we would call the rational and emotional ‘case for change’. Crucially, it is important that case has the support of sufficient number of the wider and influential leadership team.

Kotter argues for gaining the support of 75% of the leadership population, although often it is more important to just start. Rather than wait to hit a specific threshold. Our recent insight is that you have to persist with creating that sense of urgency and never stop working at it. This persistence includes using  more ‘viral’ communication approaches, building stories as we set out in our last insight piece.

A critical, perhaps the most critical, part of your leadership behaviour is the communication of this vision. In our experience you cannot ever do enough communication, especially two-way communication.  Communication is much more conversation than broadcast, more of a process to enable the change to be led by others. Enabling and empowering others to interpret the vision and make it their own, which Kotter calls enlisting that volunteer army facilitates others to translate the vision into their own changed behaviour. Once outcomes start to be delivered, the role of leader moves on to activities such as removing barriers, designing and delivering early short-term wins, and sustaining acceleration of delivery of the change that has been delivered.  At all times it is important to institutionalise the change byanchoring or embedding the changes in systems, process and corporate culture.

An important reflection from our recent work is that whilst Kotter’s model is useful in making sure we think things through and develop plans, following the model will not on its own deliver the outcome for you, and you will not realise your vision.

To achieve your vision of lasting change, you must persist with all of the activities that are summarised in Kotter’s model, all of the time. Spot opportunities to deliver or embed your vision that you had not seen in your first round of strategising and planning. Review and learn from experience in a fast cycle. In practice, it never was and never will be a serial, sequential start to finish activities. Leading change is messy, it’s a parallel set of on-going processes that need to be led. Persist and do it right you will deliver.

Stories as a key tool for change

Alistair Russell · October 21, 2020 · Leave a Comment

We got some valuable advice from a learning and development colleague to just start. Start writing up and sharing our insight, don’t wait until you are clear and definitive on what might be called a content strategy. Bring a more agile, iterative approach to our consultancy by sharing our insight with our client community. Especially, given the most important thing for us is to be the node for insightful dialogue with and amongst current and prospective clients.

In that spirit, the thought we had over the last couple of weeks is to highlight and remind us all how critical it is to set out and promote stories as part of the process of delivering change within organisations. And to pay attention to the way the stories are told. The specific steps that you take to build awareness, understanding and commitment across the organisation that ultimately lead to the changed behaviours that deliver the desired outcome.

So, we know it’s not just about having the right answer, the right thing e.g. the right digital strategy, the right enterprise architecture, the right change portfolio, the right statement of a new customer journey, the right  solution design, even. We know it’s also about how you enable that ‘right thing’ to engage with the real world of the organisation and the people in it. We learnt many years ago the importance of stakeholder engagement in delivering change, how important communication is. The thought we are adding here is that it is not just getting the messages right, the words in the communication. It’s also about the way that the words are communicated and about building the messages over time to become coherent stories that will enable change. Preparing for and delivering specific conversations at the right time will ensure the stories have the desired outcome.

A good example was a discussion at a panel focused on DevOps that I chaired with HSBC, BBC and Legal and General a week or so ago. We noted that delivering value from DevOps for your organisation is not just about re-orientating your teams along product or service lines, not just about the tools, it’s not even about the ‘micro-standards’ that we made the case for in an earlier insight piece. DevOps is about shifting the behaviour of the people in your organisations as a whole, and not just those that work in digital technology. And a critical part of the process that delivers that shift in behaviour is the stories that are told about DevOps. Stories help the process get started and build confidence that the approach will work. Stories of success and learnings from failure build commitment and performance and stories sustain everyone when it gets hard.

We encourage you to devote time and resource to take your consideration of stakeholders and communication strategy to the next level of maturity. To adopt an approach which is more akin to campaigning. To consider the stories that you would like to be circulating in the organisation about the right things you are doing. And to take care to  think through the steps you will take. The conversations, the messages you will deliver at key stages, the evidence and materials you will need to reinforce the power of the stories.

Stories are a key tool in changing behaviour to deliver change.

Making progress is critical. Deciding on the right path to deliver it can be hard. Find out how Laing Russell can help. Contact us

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