Throw out all your change management books and methodologies and theories.  Burn every PowerPoint presentation filled with diagrams and flow charts and tools and templates.  Delete your change project plans.  Forget agonizing over deliverables that your change work team must produce.  Fire every project manager or internal auditor or procurement specialist who minimizes your change effort to a mind-numbing checklist of activities to be completed for a contract to be in compliance.

Change can’t be managed.  It can only be led.

In the real world, neither logic, nor project management certification, nor executive authority, nor flashy communication will convince employees to embrace a new program with enthusiasm if it doesn’t feel right to them.  And if it doesn’t feel right to them, it isn’t.  You’ve lost them before you’ve started.

Let’s face it.  Most organization initiatives are conceived and implemented by a small group trying to impose their preferences on all or a part of the larger organization.  One department or manager makes a decision that will benefit themselves and then hopes to sell the idea to everyone else who was happy with the status quo.

They ask others to commit themselves to a new direction—spiritually, emotionally, physically, and even financially—without giving them a choice, without involving them and after the decision has already been made.

Fait accompli.

The problem isn’t the idea.  The problem isn’t even in the planning.  The problem is that no matter how “right” or well-planned an idea may be, it must be implemented well to be successful.

Implementation isn’t about a detailed project plan.  Implementation is about knowing how to connect with people and gain their support.  It’s about connecting emotionally and getting an emotional commitment.

And that’s why change can’t be managed.  Because connecting and engaging and inspiring and listening and involving are the adaptive activities of leadership.  So, instead of getting blinded by the details of the project plan, get focused on providing the leadership required for change success.

Derek Sivers, the founder and former president of CD Baby, shows in this funny and revealing video that while a leader gets things started, it’s the courageous follower that transforms the “lone nut” into a leader.  It’s the follower’s choice to follow and encourage others to follow that makes the difference between an isolated incident and a trend.  New followers follow the follower as much as, if not more than, the leader.

So, what does this mean if you are the leader?  And what does it mean even if your leadership role doesn’t require that you are a trend-setting innovator?

1. Stay true to your convictions.  It’s your strength and commitment that sets you apart and captures the attention of those around you.  It may take time for your ideas to catch on, but keep at it.
2. Embrace and nurture your followers.  Show abundant appreciation for those with the guts to walk away from the safety of the tried and true to follow you.  And then . . .
3. Collaborate.  Make it about the movement, not you.  Make your followers co-conspirators.  Give them space to shine.

If you really want to create something special—whether you are the leader, an early stage follower, or part of the in-crowd—be courageous.  Step up, show the way and know that your fearless example teaches and inspires.

In my personal life, I am an optimist.  I believe fully in the power of positive thinking and the value of spreading good cheer wherever I go, if only because it makes life more fun and enjoyable.

But when it comes to managing change, I believe in realism.  A key component of the Architecture of Change is being brutally honest about the challenges that may impact the success of the project.  If you are going to prepare to manage change effectively, you have to understand the organization’s underbelly.  You have to understand the 3F’s–the fears, frustrations and failures–of the organization and its people.  Only then will you understand how to navigate resistance.  Only then will you understand how to leverage the initiative to turn dissatisfaction into satisfaction and apathy into enthusiasm.  It provides the depth of understanding required to make the emotional connections that accelerate acceptance.

Do you have to go that deep to drive change?  No, but then your project—whether a technology or outsourcing implementation, merger, divestiture, restructuring or any other kind of change—is nothing more than a technical implementation.  You may get the benefits of the new technology or process, but you miss the larger opportunity for achieving the benefits of broader behavioral or cultural change:  better utilization of process or technology; increased cost savings; or improved organizational effectiveness.  It’s the difference between “completing the project” or “achieving the real results.”

The challenge with understanding the requirements for change at this deeper level is that it demands a high degree of discipline, desire and patience.  It requires that you listen without trying to solve or fix or judge or react to the “negativity” that you hear.  Only then can you take it all in, go beyond the superficial symptoms and solutions, and identify broader strategies for achieving more sustainable results.

This can be especially challenging for those executives who don’t like “whiners,” who want “solutions, not problems,” or who want their people to have “positive attitudes.”

Just the other day I reported the results of a readiness assessment to a twitchy exec who anxiously awaited the report of weeks of interviews and focus groups designed to give feedback about the technology and process change he was implementing.  I had the fun job of telling him what, deep down, he already knew:  the customers were at best apathetic, and at worst, hostile toward the change.  In addition, his direct reports were concerned that the change was “doomed for mediocrity.”

I didn’t make it beyond the first couple of PowerPoint bullets before he slammed his fist on the conference table and said, “I highly disagree with these results!  You don’t know what you are talking about.  I don’t like the language you’ve used to provide this feedback.  All this negativity!  If you want to advise this organization you are going to have to focus on more of the positives.  We have to tell this organization the change will be good for them and I’ve hired you to help put an end to this complaining.”

He eventually calmed down and admitted that he had heard all of this before.  And he also realized the words he didn’t like were direct quotes from his organization (and I edited out the most hostile comments!).  But he continued to struggle with what to do with the information.  His urge was to gather everyone in a room, give them a tongue lashing and to tell them if they just changed their attitude . . .

I love the above video.  The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) produces fantastic content with genius graphics, and in this video, shares the enlightening commentary of Barbara Ehrenreich.  From 1991 to 1997, Ehrenreich was a regular columnist for Time magazine. Currently, she contributes regularly to The Progressive and has also written for the New York Times, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly, Ms, The New Republic, Z Magazine, In These Times, Salon.com, and other publications.

Whether or not you agree with her politics (which for some may immediately disqualify her as an “approved” voice for business), the lessons in this video are important for understanding how to manage change well.

It’s actually a different variation of the Boy Scout motto:  Be Prepared.

Be prepared to manage the worst case resistance.  Be prepared to handle strong emotions.  Be prepared to find multiple ways of getting through to stakeholders.  Be prepared by understanding the influence networks, the politics, the cultural norms, and the variety of stakeholder perceptions, interests and desires.

Be prepared to accept the good, bad and ugly that exists within our organizations and to realize it represents a rich diversity of brain power that, when tapped, will help us adapt, create, invent and collaborate on the way to great results.

You better start loving up your employees.

As we begin to recover from the economic downturn, organizations will be relying on their workforces more than ever to help them return to stronger financial performance.  But with recent studies showing that fewer than 1 in 3 employees are engaged and as many as 55% are passive job seekers, the risks to organization performance are significant if companies are not prepared to actively reengage disaffected employees.

And that’s going to take a lot of love.

According to the research, companies with engaged employees—those that are fully involved in and enthusiastic about their work—have been shown to have higher levels of retention of talent, customer service, individual performance, team performance, business unit productivity, and even enterprise-level financial performance.  The research has also shown that emotional factors impact employee engagement four times as much as rational factors.  Recognizing this fact will be essential for managers because no matter how your company has fared during the last 18-24 months, employees everywhere are emotionally drained.

Layoffs, the threat of layoffs, tight and shrinking corporate budgets, stressed bosses, tense workplaces, fears about economy’s impact on personal and professional life.  These factors have our reptilian brains in high gear as we try to process the fears that are being triggered by this environment.

There are profound implications in Antonio Damasio’s research.  Emotions drive much of our decision-making processes because they allow us to mark things as good, bad or indifferent.  Our emotional responses to situations become memories, many of which are subconscious.  This means that we don’t just remember the facts; we remember our emotional perceptions of the facts.

So, given that even in the best workplaces fear has been running high, it’s no wonder, as the above statistics report, that employees will be, at best, indifferent to their jobs coming out of this economic period.  That’s not necessarily the fault of you or your organization.  It’s part of living in this time.  Nonetheless, it shouldn’t make us complacent.

To drive corporate performance, it is more important than ever to improve the level of engagement and begin to build back positive emotions.

And that brings us back to the love.

Creating employee engagement is about something more important than giving employees a $10 Starbucks gift certificate . . . although that can’t hurt.  The strongest driver of employee engagement comes from believing we are valued and involved.  That’s about some simple and very important things:

• Listening.  Employees need to feel able to voice their ideas and that managers value their contributions.  That sometimes means managers have to hang in there even when the view is voiced as a cheap shot or some other negative emotion.  Listening to understand and show empathy for the emotion helps employees move beyond the emotion and feel understood and accepted.
• Accepting.  Employees need to feel like you see their strengths as valuable and that you see their shortcomings as valuable, or at least a neutral part of an otherwise terrific package.  We get great performance when we help employees leverage their strengths for the best overall contribution.
• Involving.  Employees need to feel involved.  Involve them by over communicating and increasing transparency.  Involve them through problem-solving.  Best of all, involve them in decision making.

Helping employees get engaged during and after change requires that we create a workplace environment that builds positive emotional memories.  And the best tools to help managers do this are those that build relationships, gather insight and create opportunities for employees to shine.   This helps you not just get the most, but the best, from everyone in your organization.

A number of years ago I had a boss who was so focused on staying on schedule during meetings that he forgot we were actually gathered to accomplish something.  He thought nothing of interrupting a productive dialog to remind everyone that we needed to move to the next agenda item.  The poor fellow thought “accomplishment” was the same as placing a check mark next to everything on our list.  He equated completing an activity with achieving a result.

I actually think his obsession with the agenda was his way of dealing with the emotional discomfort he felt in conversations where others expressed different points of view.  He just didn’t like to listen.  In his mind, it was better to avoid direct conflict, leave issues unresolved and objectives unclear, push forward and implement his own solutions when needed.

Unfortunately, I think this way of managing is all too common, especially when it comes to change initiatives.

Companies regularly make the mistake of placing too much emphasis on the time it will take to implement change programs, believing that shorter is better.  They set aggressive schedules that require herculean efforts on the part of technical teams, and like my former boss, ignore the “extraneous” tasks required to manage human components well.  As a result they rush through the planning and implementation of projects and then wonder why they struggle to achieve success.  They assume that the longer the initiative, the more likely it is to fail.

I understand the concerns.  In this day of impatient leadership and knee-jerk decision-making, organizations are concerned that interest and enthusiasm will wane, key supporters will leave, objectives will be replaced by a new flavor of the month, or challenges will accumulate and put the wrong kind of spotlight on project supporters.  Quick implementation seems logical and like it will improve the chances that an initiative will be completed.

Contrary to this perception, however, research conducted by Harold Sirkin, Perry Kennan and Alan Jackson found that the length of a project is not as critical to success as . . . guess what? . . . review meetings.  More specifically,  they found that a long project reviewed frequently is more likely to succeed than a shorter project that is not reviewed frequently enough.  They suggest that organizations should formally review transformation projects at least bimonthly since the probability that change initiatives will run into trouble rises exponentially when the time between reviews exceeds eight weeks.

My own research and work with clients agrees with this finding.  That’s why regular meetings are a critical component of Change Science in Solleva Group’s Architecture of Change.

Regular meetings are the best way project teams can engage executives in the process of scheduling and assessing the impact milestones, review the execution of projects, identify gaps, and spot new risks. The most effective milestones are those that describe major actions or achievements rather than day-to-day activities. These keep senior executives and project sponsors out of the weeds and enable them to confirm that the project has made progress since the last review took place.

Frequent reviews not only help drive the completion of technical tasks, but they also create a foundation that strengthens change management.  A dialog centered around actions and results leads to better discussions about the needs of stakeholders and other risks.  When a milestone looks as though it won’t be reached on time, the review meeting  pushes project teams to understand why and to identify corrective actions.

Sirkin et al refer to these milestones as “learning milestones.”  They are more than impromptu assessments of what could be done better.  They are a formal occasion where senior managers and the project team work collaboratively toward improving performance.  They determine whether achieving the milestone has had the desired effect on the company and they discuss the problems the team faced in reaching the milestone.  They also determine how the process will affect future phases of the project.  They evaluate process, capacity and capability of resources, alternative directions, team dynamics as well as the organization’s perceptions about the initiative.

Regular meetings.  Clearly identified results.  Listening.  Learning.  Collaborative problem solving.  That’s not just good project and change management.  That’s good leadership.

Listening is an essential ingredient for innovation.

Eric Lewis listens to the world differently than the rest of us, and as a result, is creating the next evolution of jazz.  I had the joy of seeing him a number of years ago–before the hair–when he was playing with Wynton Marsalis.  Then, he was electric.  Now, he is unleashed!  His version of Evanescence’s “Going Under” is inspired.  He captures the raw energy of alternative rock, the spirit of classical jazz, and a plays with a passion that is transcendent.

Innovators, like all masterful change artists, understand the essence of things.  And that’s a level of listening that goes beyond just hearing.  Innovators get under the skin of things, not to control them, but to appreciate them and to empathize.  It’s that deep understanding, when combined with the same depth of perception in other areas, that opens up their ability to synthesize, make connections, morph and discover new possibilities.

In a panel at Wharton’s 125th anniversary celebration, C. Robert Henrikson, chairman and CEO of global insurer MetLife, said, “All parts of the organization must have a sense of the customers’ business to anticipate their needs and reach out with innovative ideas.”   In the same panel discussion, New York City developer Jeffrey Katz, CEO of Sherwood Equities, a major investor in Times Square, said business leaders must remain open to what comes their way in order to capitalize on opportunities.

Having a sense of; being open; empathizing.  That’s about listening.  Creating an innovation culture depends upon it.

It’s been fascinating to watch the attempts at U.S. healthcare reform over the last year and beyond.  The change management requirements for this monumental effort make multi-process, enterprise outsourcing implementations look like a piece of cake!

Ross Douthat’s column in Sunday’s New York Times presents an insightful summary of the challenge, highlighting the complex web of special interests—“stakeholders” to a change manager.  He refers to the analysis of Jonathan Rauch, author of “Government’s End:  Why Washington Stopped Working,” and nails the heart of the problem:

“. . . sweeping reforms are difficult because we’re all special interests, in one sense or another.  We all benefit from something (or many things) the government does, and so we all have an incentive to resist dramatic changes to the way Washington spends money.”

Big Pharma, Big Insurance, senior citizens who receive Medicare, hospitals, patients and doctors in states with big healthcare expenditures, upper income taxpayers, and unions.  No matter what our political views, chances are that we all fall into at least one of these stakeholder groups.

And just like in any large scale change, when you have that many factions invested in the status quo, guess what?  You get lots of resistance, conflict, and ultimately, project failure.

It’s not that rapid, large-scale change is impossible.  It just requires a massive sense of urgency to align multiple factions around a common objective.  That’s why the fear of bankruptcy and job loss are such great motivators for quick, radical change.

Without a high sense of urgency, however, experienced change leaders know that it takes vision, discipline and patience to gradually align stakeholder groups around a common objective and a process for achieving it.  That’s a tall order for any leader who has to shepherd change in a 2, 4 or 6 year time frame and balance those demands with getting reelected.

What’s the answer?

It’s a well-known lesson learned by those who have implemented complex change:  Practice lowercase “t” transformation, not upper case “T” transformation.

In other words, make big change to small things and small changes to big things.

Massive Transformation (upper case “T”) initiatives are difficult to pull off.  That’s why in BPO, for example, the name of the game is increasingly single-process outsourcing instead of massive functional outsourcing.

A smaller, more measured approach helps manage the stakeholder issues that can derail a change effort.  It’s easier to align a few stakeholder groups around a single change than an entire organization around multiple changes.  The approach doesn’t transform in one big swoop, but you make forward progress.  And with vision, discipline and patience, broader change can be made over the longer term.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that healthcare reform really happens sometime soon.  I think we all agree that it is needed.  No matter whether the current imperfect plan passes or fails, however, let’s be prepared to come back to the table and keep tackling this issue small step by small step.

In the US alone, the industry has grown to an estimated $500 billion and has become a standard option for organization service delivery strategy.  Especially now that world economies are beginning their slow path to recovery, organizations are renewing their intentions to explore outsourcing capability not only to manage costs, but to bring higher levels of quality and innovation.

Any organization considering outsourcing, however, should be aware of the following sobering statistics before signing on the dotted line.

• A study conducted by Dun & Bradstreet reported that 25 percent of all outsourcing “fails completely” and more than 50% of all outsourcing deals do not deliver “any substantive benefit at all.”
• As stated in the article, numerous surveys indicate that anywhere from 17% to 53% of customers have not realized business value / return on investment from offshore outsourcing. (CIO, 2008)
• 58% of organizations surveyed could not confirm that outsourcing had clearly improved financial performance. (KPMG, 2008)
• 90% of customer organizations didn’t accurately understand the opportunity costs of the selection process and 79% of such organizations couldn’t accurately identify the internal financial cost of the sourcing selection process. (KPMG, 2008)

Will we listen to the results of these outsourcing efforts and apply the lessons learned?

Or will well-intentioned, but single-minded executives continue to be so blinded by the promise of delivering heroic cost reductions that they fail to manage well-established outsourcing challenges such as business transformation, governance and change management?

For much of the past two decades, outsourcing was shaped by large companies negotiating complex, multi-party contracts as a last resort to affect a financial turnaround.  Cost reduction has been the primary, if not only, motivation for inking these deals and until recently, buyers thought of them as one-time events and not part of ongoing strategy.  As a result, organizations did little to develop the operating competence required to integrate and sustain the capability over the longer term.

This point was highlighted in a conversation I had recently with a vice president of technology for a global financial services firm.  “We have been so focused on taking out cost that we’ve lost sight of outsourcing as anything other than a short-term financial transaction.  It’s been a huge mistake not to focus on how it would impact our business.  The aftermath has created extraordinary pain that is difficult to measure financially because those of us who remain somehow find a way to pick up the pieces.”

This pain has led experienced buyers to realize that some degree of transformation is necessary in every outsourcing implementation.  In addition, if outsourcing is going to deliver higher levels of quality and innovation, broader transformation is essential.

Spread the word.  Let’s make sure in the coming decade we avoid repeating history and shift to a more comprehensive implementation model that more effectively manages the transition and transforms the infrastructure required to create outsourcing success.

Will Smith

I believe in the power of New Year’s resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions represent our desire to be better than we are, to grow, and to improve.  They represent our dreams, our hopes, and our aspirations.

No matter whether they are big goals like changing our life or career direction, or more focused objectives, like losing 5 pounds, New Year’s resolutions represent our desire to create change.  And just like all great change management, they require the ability to create a clear vision of the future and the desire to set out on a path to achieve it.  They require stretching beyond a comfort zone and dedicating ourselves, or our organizations, to continuous improvement.

So, for those of you who, like me, engage in the annual, if not ongoing process of creating personal and organizational change, I offer the above video as inspiration.

Will Smith shares his personal insights and suggests that greatness is much easier to achieve than it seems.  He talks about well-known, enduring, and yet often overlooked principles such as focus, hard work, dedication and above all, belief.  He shares his conviction that we have a spiritual responsibility to make everything we come into contact with better.

I especially like his example of spending 18 months with his brother rebuilding the wall on the front of his father’s business.  “You don’t set out to build a wall,” Smith states.  “You say I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. And you do that every single day and soon you have a wall.”

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins states, “Good is the enemy of great.  And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.”

Maybe if we thought a bit more like Will Smith and made the pursuit of one-brick-at-a-time greatness our spiritual responsibility, change would not be so hard to achieve.

Here’s to a great 2010!

Fiona MacLeod, president of BP’s Convenience Retail USA & Latin America, spoke about these issues recently at Wharton’s Leadership Conference on the challenges of event driven change (http://tinyurl.com/mewr9p). She said that many change management programs fail because:

• New leaders are often more concerned with “making a big splash” than with following through on a long-term plan to monitor change and keep the program on track.
• Organizations often revert to old habits because employees do not understand why change is needed, or they lack the tools and training required to sustain the new approach.
• Nothing changes because ownership of the change rests with an external team or consultants, rather than with the leaders responsible for running the business.

MacLeod also urged managers to attend to the “soft” side of change by putting in place programs to fully engage leaders and employees in the process of creating change.  According to MacLeod, this not only includes articulating the business case and vision of the future, it also includes gaining the commitment of leaders who are ultimately responsible for ensuring the change is sustainable.