#530  Innovative Leader Volume 10, Number 6          June 2001

Making Change Happen One Person at a Time
by Charles H. Bishop, Jr., Ph.D.

Dr. Bishop is president of Chicago Change Partners, Inc., providing a range of individual and organizational change services. He is author of Making Change Happen One Person at a Time (Amacom, New York, 2001), from which this article is adapted.

Change happens one person at a time.  This doesn’t mean you must identify the change capacity of thousands of employees one person at a time.  It means that you must assess the capacity of the key people you’re considering for pivotal positions in a change strategy.  At its core, this process revolves around the following premise:

Before change can happen, you need to assess your key people early on, and do so quickly, accurately, and with an eye toward new and emerging organizational requirements.

As simple as this sounds, it’s rarely done.  People make all sorts of false assumptions about an individual’s readiness for change, ability to lead it, and capacity for performing within a changed system.  In the rush to change, managers and human resources departments fail to assess whether people are really capable of carrying out new strategies or working in new ways.  As a result, they don’t make the right decisions about whom to develop, whom to transfer, whom to bring in from the outside, and whom to let go.

The Neglected Square

To understand the importance of individual assessment, let’s look at change from the vantage point of the change matrix, below, which is a graphic representation of the four requisite activities involved in this process.

CHANGE MATRIX

As people plan and implement change programs, they tend to focus their efforts on the bottom two organizational squares.  This is to be expected; change isn’t going to be effective if the organization doesn’t create and communicate a sound strategy or fails to implement a plan to deal with a flawed strategy.  Though the individual development square receives some attention, it is usually in the form of cookie-cutter development programs that often bear little relationship to the change needs of an individual.  And that’s because the individual assessment square is either ignored or false assumptions are made.  Individual assessment rarely is approached in a systematic manner, and it usually is the last and least important item on the change-management agenda.  Instead, management makes broad, sweeping statements such as “Our people are…,” or “Our managers are…,” assuming that change takes place in homogeneous groups.

What I’m suggesting is that individual assessment should be the first and most important item.  This isn’t to say that other factors aren’t important.  Issues such as strategy, alignment, financing, and technology all can play significant roles in a change effort.  Obviously, you’re not going to change from a low-tech to a high-tech company unless you make an investment in new technology.

But all change roads lead back to people.  You are not going to make an effective transition from a low-tech to a high-tech company unless the key people involved in the project embrace the new processes, as well as have the skills to capitalize on them and the leadership ability to motivate others to use the new equipment to the best of their abilities.  No matter how process-oriented a change might be, people always have to implement it.  The slogan from the old Fram oil filter commercial—“Pay me now or pay me later”—is applicable.  If you don’t assess people’s change capacity up front, you’ll have to do it later at a much greater cost.

Is Your Company Ready for Change?

Before any change-focused development can take place in your organization, it’s important to determine the health of your overall culture.  Check the statements below that are true for your organization.  Answer as honestly as possible.

1.__ A disproportionate amount of time is spent by employees complaining about what the company has done/not done for them.

2.__ Promotion is primarily based on tenure.

3.__ When a key job comes up, the emphasis on “Who is here” as opposed to “what do we need?” is pervasive.

4.__ If work is not done, it goes to the next highest level; mediocrity is accepted or glossed over.

5.__ Real feedback is rare, and people are treated with kid gloves.

6.__ Past practices drive employee behavior much more than present practices or future needs.

7.__ Issues are not addressed—a “conspiracy of politeness” dominates how people behave, though infighting and political games playing go on behind closed doors.

8.__ There is little turnover, though everyone knows that certain individuals are poor performers.

9.__ Technical specialists are commonly promoted into management positions and often block the energies and talents of those working under them.

10.__ The mind-set for change, as well as the process, is limited.  Change is considered in a department, as opposed to change beginning at the top.

Give yourself one point for each statement you marked true, and see where your organization stands:

Score
0 - 3            Congratulations!  Your company culture will probably respond well to change!
4 - 7      Caution: There is a 50-50 chance that individuals will resist change-focused development.
8 - 10    Beware:  People will not be invested in, or energized by, you plan.

Do You Know the “Present State” of Your Company?

Each leader should appreciate the factors that have been proven to be key levers with change efforts.  What’s the “present state” of your organization?  Answer true or false.

1.__ Our value proposition—what we provide that is unique and distinctive—is defined and well understood.

2.__ Perception is clear in the ranks that the top leader is “out in front” on the change and demonstrates strong commitment.

3.__ A “guiding coalition of key leaders” for the future is in place—we have the team to make this strategy happen.

4.__ We ask tough questions about people and are willing to make tough “people calls.”

5.__ We have a strong commitment to improve our work processes—making them more “customer facing” or externally focused than internally efficient.

6.__ “Customer mentality” (i.e. what the customer needs) determines and defines quality and value.

7.__ Our overall performance system is geared to drive the strategy.

8.__ We keep track, evaluate, and celebrate the progress we’re making.

To score, give yourself one point for each statement you marked true.

0 - 3      Be careful.  Your organization has significant weakness and may require some work before implementing a change strategy.
4 - 5      You are on the right track.  You show great strength in some areas.
7 - 8      Congratulations!  You are ready to implement your change actions and take the organization to the next level.