Hello, and welcome to this week’s HR Uprising Podcast – Delivering Organisational Change. My name is Lucinda Carney and I’m your Host. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed our series of conversations with, that we’ve had running over the summer.
However, we’re back into business as usual. So, I thought it might be time for us to do a solo episode. The topic that I thought I would share with you today, is the one that’s also the topic of a white paper. So, if it’s something that you’ll find of interest, we’ve got the information in more detail that you can download from the Actus website or from the show notes.
So, the topic today is,
Delivering Organisational Change
We’re thinking here of slightly wider change. Many of us within HR are seen as the custodians of change, particularly, if it relates to people things, which it usually does. And I’m sure that most of us have come across the adage, which has gone into most urban folklore now, that 70 per cent of change initiatives failed. They failed due to people issues.
So, that’s a very well used statement and I did some digging around. It does seem, I think, that was originally attributed to McKinsey some 20 years ago. But there’s still a number of bodies that show that changes are still not as successful as they should be. And much of the time, it is down to people’s natural responses to change, and also, the way in which it’s planned.
So, I’m not going to go into people’s responses today. But that is something that we may look at on a future episode. What I wanted to do, was, look at the model that’s often really well-cited, and people are familiar with called Kotter, his 8-Step Change Model, and talk through it maybe with some examples. As you know, I try to keep it relevant and pragmatic.
This is the Model that I have used successfully a number of times. I have also trained it out many, many, many times with people. There are certain areas, time and again when we analyse change, that it tends to break, or the change breaks, not the Model, and it’s predictable.
So, the purpose of this podcast is to share the Model with you if you’re not familiar with it, or hopefully, bring it to life a little bit if it is something you’re familiar with, but have never really felt comfortable using.
So, one of the keys in terms of change we’ve alluded to, it’s seen as change. It’s seen to fail down to people issues. Kotter is really well known. He published a book in ’95 called, Leading Change. He said that much of the problems were down to people perceiving change to be an event as opposed to a process. I think that certainly that is the case in most organisational change. You can’t just do something overnight, and expect everybody to change.
Yet time and again in businesses, and I’ve experienced it personally, people at the top maybe considered that just by sending out an email saying, this is going to happen, and then sitting back that, that’s going to result in the business benefits and all those things that the change should deliver.
Of course, that’s not the case. People need to understand why change is happening. They need to understand what they need to do. They may need to express their feelings and emotions about the change. There’s plenty to it and in many logical changes, there are lots of steps that need to go along the way, that need to be implemented. So, Kotter’s Model, I think, is particularly useful for organisational transformational change.
I think there’s a theory that’s also worth relating to, which can be overlaid on Kotter’s Model. It’s actually by someone called Kurt Lewin and it precedes Kotter. So, it’s 1951. He’s a psychologist. He talked about a 3-Step Approach to Change. Basically, if you are imagining a curve in front of you, or a U shape. In terms of the change, we’ve got our status quo on the left, then at the top of the U. He said, in order to make it change, what you have to do, is, unfreeze the current status quo. Then you have to make the change.
So, I’m now at the bottom of the U, going from left to right. If you’re struggling to visualise this, I have got diagrams in the paper. And then we go back into refreezing at the other side. So, we’ve got to unfreeze, where we stop what we’re doing. There’s a freeze, and then there’s a refreeze.
Actually, there’s a book called, The Iceberg Has Melted. My Iceberg Has Melted, which is a Kotter book, which uses stories of penguins in relation to this whole concept and the freezing analogy.
So, we’ve probably got that in our mind. This Unfreeze-Freeze Model in terms of unfreeze, make the change, and then refreeze. Then what we need to do, is, we need to look at how we can actually progress the change, in terms of how we might apply the Kotter Model.
So, you’ve probably heard of it but in terms of this, and it’s actually been updated a number of times, the actual Model itself. There are 8 stages to this, or actually, I say, it’s an 8-Stage Change Process and this is our key. There’s thinking about change as a process rather than just an event.
So, what I’ll do in fact, is, I’ll run through all 8 of them, and then I’ll go back to each one in turn.
Kotter’s 8 Step Change Model
- So, the first one that Kotter says is really key, it’s to establish a sense of urgency.
- The second one is about establishing a powerful guiding coalition.
- Then what we need to do, is, to create a compelling vision.
- Communicate the change. So, notice in terms of the unfreezing. I would say, Stages 1 to 3, are all about unfreezing. They’re about the planning of how to make the change. We only start making the change here, when we start to tell people and that communicates the change.
- Remove obstacles.
- To create short-term wins. This one I really like. This is where we’re going into the refreeze at Stage 6 and then we go on to consolidate improvements and institutionalise the change.
Now, I alluded to you earlier the fact, that I’ve found anecdotally. I’m sure, either there’d probably be some research that would support this, that there are certain places in Kotter’s Model, where it’s not done well. Or, if it’s not done well, the change breaks down.
And logically, again, it falls at the stages of transition. So, as I said earlier, in terms of those points, between Points 3 and 4, between the vision and communicating the change, that is the place where, in my experience, often the change doesn’t happen. So, I said people don’t communicate it enough. Kotter says we need to communicate change 10 times more than we think we need to. So, different formats, frequencies, routes through different people, allowing people to listen to the change and also, to ask questions about the change. So, communication can be two way. So, communication is one of the first places that change doesn’t happen in the first place because it’s communicated, but nothing happens.
The second place, where I see that change doesn’t happen, is, you might have done a lot of the hard work, but then it comes to the short-term wins and the consolidation. So, this is the refreeze. So, you’ve done all the work of unfreezing the organisation, making the change, and then going through to consolidating the improvements. What happens, is, we never made it back up that curve. Going back to our U, the consolidating improvements and institutionalising the changes, what happens too often is it doesn’t take place. We don’t turn that change into business as usual and it’s just seen as something that’s new, which means, that not everybody goes with you. Quite often, that change breaks down.
So, those are the two danger points. I appreciate this might be easier to look at than to explain it. I hope you’re following me. But visualising that literally, it’s at those change points, those transition points on the Freeze-Refreeze Model. If we overlay it onto Kotter’s Model, that’s where change is likely to break down. Therefore, if your role is to be a change agent, that’s where you need to pay extra special attention in terms of trying to avoid it being a problem.
So, let’s just run through what we mean by each of these steps of change.
Establishing A Sense of Urgency
I’m sure many of us have heard that term, Burning Platform. This is actually quite an unpleasant metaphor that goes back to the 70s I think, with the people jumping off an oil rig, which was preferable to staying on it. So, there was a very compelling sense of urgency for people to choose to change the status quo.
Now, clearly, that’s not the way we want to motivate people in business. But one of the challenges often is that people don’t have a sense of urgency with which to change. Even if they think it’s a good thing to do, they don’t think it’s urgent. So, we need to consider how we can ensure that there is a sense of urgency, whether it’s through there being some benefits if we operate soon or high risks if we don’t do something in the next 6, 12, 18 months. Or, even if we put in place artificial deadlines, the first point we need to think about, is, why should we do this change, and why should we do it now, how we create some urgency for people who the changes are being done to.
Now, of course, this is probably in a large-scale change happening with a small group of people who’ve identified that that need to change might happen. So, I think of an organisation I worked for, where they moved, they completely restructured. No one knew about it until it was communicated.
But clearly, they’ve been looking at it strategically for years. They had identified that the way, in which, they were currently structured, was not going to give them a competitive advantage over the long-term and if they didn’t change within the next 18 months, they would no longer be one or 2 in their chosen markets and that was their key vision.
So, there needed to be a certain way, in a certain market. They’d completely restructured to align with those sectors. But this decision at this stage was all strategic. Only a few people knew it.
Form A Powerful Guiding Coalition
The next stage though, where they started to plan it out was to form a powerful guiding coalition. So, this is your change team or your first set of the change team. Depending on how big the rollout is, you may have a second change team, which I would call, maybe, your change champions that you would engage with later when you’re trying to implement the change.
But at the start, you might have a powerful coalition, a group of people working together. They are thinking what do we need to do, how do we plan this change. If you want this to work well, and going where I’ve seen change failed, is, when this powerful guiding coalition is in a bubble.
So, you need to make sure that, if you’re part of it, that you’re engaging with the real world. An example that I can remember is when a system is rolled out, and it was new, I think, it was a new expenses system or something. The people who planned it, you know, made great sense on paper. But when it came down to people in certain manufacturing areas, or the way in which, they were paid, there were aspects of the existing system, which were not understood by the coalition that could not be implemented, which meant that the time frames were never realistic to roll it out.
So, my view, is, if you get part of a powerful guiding coalition, try really hard to make sure that some of this is involving stakeholder analysis, where you actually go and understand stakeholders right down to those who are using the existing systems and processes. These are the things that can make us become unstuck, in that, a change is seen on paper to be far simpler than it is when you go out and look at what has to happen in reality.
That’s said, of course, you know, you can go out and talk to people about what happens in reality, and get put off, and you’d never get started. So, there is a level of getting a balance between being a healthy optimist and can do, and being a realist in terms of understanding what the current status quo is.
Think About A Compelling Vision
So, then we need to think about a compelling vision. And what this is really doing, is, starting to frame the communication. So, the compelling vision, is, why do we need to change? The sense of urgency was sort of to start with. Now, we need to position when we are communicating this change to others in the organisation. What is the “to be”? You know, we’re doing this at the moment. We’re saying it’s urgent. What are we going to be instead?
In an ideal world, this needs to be motivational. Again, it can be a positive or negative. But it’s nicer if it’s a positive vision. That said, you might have to have two aspects. So, it might be we need to restructure into these different sector groups. If we don’t do this, we will not be competitive, which might result in job losses. So, that’s less positive.
But can we come up with a compelling vision that we’ll be a high performing engineering firm, or we will be fully compliant, and no one will be at risk of being picked up by our regulatory body? It’s coming up with the clarity of when we’ve done this change, what will the outcome be so that, that can be communicated clearly as part of the change comes.
Then, of course, we move on to the change comes, where we start telling people, what’s going to happen. What I would say, is, two aspects, I mentioned one earlier. One is that, it should be a two-way process. People do have emotional responses to change. So, just sending out an email is all very well, but that is not going to help people go through the emotional processes, usually associated to change.
So, we need to be prepared to communicate in a number of methods, formats through a range of people. And we also need to be prepared to listen, which is, part of communication, while people express their views. That doesn’t mean you change anything necessarily, but you have to help people through the process. If you do that, then you will take more people with you. And that’s got to be a positive thing, because then you’re going to make the change happen faster.
Of course, you need to make sure skilled managers, and this is where it’s alluding to our champions. This might be where we’re going to a broader group of people, who are helping to communicate the change, who are on board with it. So, that’s one aspect that I saying, in terms of two areas we need to make sure that it’s two-way, and it’s well communicated.
The other aspect is to think about how you frame your communication. There is a Model called, 4Mat out there, spelt with the 4, mat. It’s by a lady whose name I can’t remember. An Australian lady, Bernice is her first name. I’ll put it in the show notes, because I can’t remember her second name.
But what that basically is saying, it’s a good way of framing your communication, if it’s written communication, or if it’s going to be a presentation. You essentially need to think about what is the change, you know, in very simple sentence. Say, we’re going to move to be sectors as opposed to being aligned in our current way. What is change? Why is the change happening? So, giving people the idea of the why.
Why is an interesting one, because if you are smart, you might actually have different levels of change, because the why for your shareholders may be a different why for the Trade Unions. It might be a different why for the managers. When I say that, is ideally, the why is what motivates the people. So, the motivator is probably going to be different for different groups. Clearly, you can have one set of communication that covers all of them. But do think about trying to make the why as relevant as possible for your particular user group.
So, we’ve got our what, our why. Obviously, people then need to know the how. So, what does this mean for me? How will you do this? What’s the time frame? All of the practicalities. Think about those frequently ask questions, and get those set up in advance.
Then an interesting one for me, which I hadn’t come across before, which is, the what if. So, this is almost closing the loop. For those who are familiar with learning styles, it links to Kolb’s Cycle of Learning, where we need to go through a whole cycle to take things on board. This is helping people to think about the consequences. Most of what if we do change. But also, what happens, if we don’t. And what that does, is, it again ties up the motivation loop almost, in terms of you’ve got the why, which is the strategic why, but what are the consequences, if we don’t do this. What are the consequences, if we do, do this? And there will be positives and negatives on each.
So, that’s quite an interesting little Model. You can think of in terms of communication. Using 4Mat Model, but also lots of different variations in giving people chance to make communication two-way as well.
Removing Obstacles
Section 5 is about removing obstacles. So, this is where the blockers arise and as I said earlier, if we have done our homework in the earlier stage, we might be able to pre-empt some of those obstacles and help to embed this and make it flow better.
But we will have to overcome problems. We may need to identify what resistors were in place in the first place and work out ways of unblocking them. Thinking about things with systems. This could be, do you need to introduce single sign-on so you don’t have lots of problems of people logging on. Or, going back to our restructure, we might have blockers in the fact that we’ve all got our different ways of reporting currently, whether it’s a different newsletter. We’ve got different headed notepaper, different ways in which we have expense policies. How can we pre-empt those obstacles that might stop us being successful, and remove them as soon as possible?
Creating Short-Term Wins
So, that’s you making the change. Then we get to creating short-term wins. I think this is really infrequently used. But it’s really, really powerful. So, this might be about us recognising those people who are making the change and shouting about it. So, when you’re helping people go through change, that’s holding up those ones who’ve got on board with it and recognise them. It could be about communicating, going back to our model of an organisation restructuring. It might be communicating in sharing the first deal that you’ve got as a new sector. So, everyone can recognise that there is a success.
This is really, really important because what this is doing, it’s messaging the laggards that the change is coming. The change has been successful. Actually, they’re getting left behind. If we just ignore just the wins, people are getting on board, but you’re not doing, is, reinforce it. If you think about children, you need to reinforce good behaviour. So, catch those people doing things right, who are making the change, and signal clearly to those who aren’t, that they need to come along for the ride.
Consolidation
Then we get into the implementation and nailing it on. This the pushing uphill. Again, it’s really hard. One of the things I do recommend is that, you might, if it’s a large-scale change, this might be the point, at which you need to bring in fresh blood into your change team. One of the reasons I think that, is that we all know different personalities out there, that people who are great at change, are often great at starting things. But therefore, if they’re great at starting things, they’re hardly ever good at finishing things. So, they’ve been through all the exciting stuff at the beginning, and then communicating and shouting from the rooftops, you can probably get them as far as shouting about short-term wins.
But when we talk about consolidation, which is, a bit more of a process, possibly a slog, this is where you need a certain type of person. Those people who are great at processes, that are dotting the i’s, crossing the t’s who keep on knocking over the obstacles. This is someone who you want to be in place here, who if it’s a system, it’s the people who are really good with smoothing out systems and don’t get bored easily.
So, this is about consolidation and if you keep going here, this is where we start to get the benefits. On top of that, then you have to institutionalise the change. So, that would be, where I’d say you’re building on the change. So, we’ve announced our first sale as part of the sector. It’s where we then start having a conference within that sector, or we have sector awards so that the way in which we do things in this new organisational structure becomes embedded. It becomes the way we do things around here.
So, then it becomes institutionalised and then, and not only then have you completed the change. The reason’s it’s so important to go out the other side, and I think that the U analogy is really powerful, because it’s hard work, pushing things uphill. The unfreezing, people can get quite excited about. There’s a new vision. The change itself is okay. It’s still doing things, and unblocking things, problem-solving.
But consolidation and institutionalising the change can really feel like an uphill battle and you need people to see things through the end. Because, if you don’t do that, you never actually fully reap the benefits of the change. That is my genuine belief, is that, one of the reasons why we have the problems, that we have in terms of not getting the benefits that we should from change, because we never finish pushing it uphill, which means we never realise the actual benefits of going into that change in the first place. Quite often, that means you’ve got people who never started to change and those who’ve tried to change. So, you’ve almost got a split audience within your organisation and you’ve got to decide, whether or not they slowly move around, or you end up having slightly lower level games than you would have done otherwise, had you seen it through to the end.
So, that was my whistle-stop tour through Kotter’s Change Model. I’ve got a more detailed version of it that you can download, which goes into it in more detail. I’m interested actually if you’ve been through this yourself. How you might actually have experienced the change? You know, if you reflect on changes you’ve been involved in, do you actually find, or did you find it, you had problems exactly what I’m saying at the freeze or unfreeze point? I’ll be really interested to hear.
In fact, more than anything on this episode, thank you for listening, and if you have got something, you’d be happy to share. I’m working on a book at the moment called, How To Be A Change Superhero. I’m looking for case studies. So, do reach out to me on social media. If you would like to share your case study, you might get involved in the book (names can be hidden). It would be lovely to hear your examples.
Thank you for listening so far anyway and I really, really do appreciate it when people reach out to me on social media. Let me know that you’ve listened to the podcast. Let me know whether you’ve got something out of it. It’s hugely helpful because it gives me feedback as to whether or not I’m doing things right or wrong. So, I’m really keen to hear from you anyway.
So, please do stay in touch and get in touch snd I look forward to talking and getting to know more of the audience over this next phase, between now and Christmas.
So, this is Lucinda Carney, tuning out from The HR Uprising Podcast on Delivering Organisational Change.
