Challenging Change

The following is a guest article from my friends at Tailwind Project Solutions:

In his new book – How to get Fired at the C-Level: Why mismanaging change is the biggest risk of all – Peter Taylor challenges the foundations of organisational change, asking if the c-level executives out there are truly ready for change to be successful in their own businesses?

You can read more about this at SME www.smeweb.com/sme/how-mismanaging-change-is-the-biggest-risk-of-all – where Peter describes the four-year study by LeadershipIQ.com which found that the number one reason CEO’s got fired was …. wait for it …. mismanaging change.

He talks of business growth, even business existence, being built increasingly from such change; strategic change – new markets, new products, change driven through regulatory demand, change driven to maintain market share, change driven by mergers and acquisitions, changes driven by new executives, and so on.

And he argues that by putting those two parts together, a world where executives get fired on a regular basis for mismanaging change and a business world of increasing change, then you have a high-risk scenario it seems in many board rooms across the world.

Worrying!

But Peter, ever the pragmatist, offers some practical advice through his 5-5-5-5 model for assessing change foundations and making improvements to such foundations in his book.

 

And at the project level Peter offers some advice on the 10 Things People Often Get Wrong When Managing A Project (or change) as you can see here in Female First http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/peter-taylor-how-to-get-fired-at-the-c-level-1045268.html

He explores the most common things that people do wrong when trying to manage that tricky temporary endeavour that is designed to bring about a positive change i.e. a project.

Perhaps there is a solution to the worry after all. Why not talk to us at Tailwind Project Solutions to see if we can help http://tailwindps.com/

Tailwind Project Solutions was formed in 2014 to provide a bespoke approach to project leadership development. Owned by Director & CEO Alex Marson, the organisation works with large FTSE 250 clients including some of the biggest companies in the world in the Asset Management, Professional Services, Software, Automotive, Finance and Pharmaceutical industry.  The company has a team of world-class experts who provide a bespoke approach to the challenges that our clients have, and the company was formed as a result of a gap in the market for expertise which truly gets to the heart of the issues clients are facing – providing a robust, expert solution to change the way that companies run their projects.

At the time, the market was becoming flooded with training companies, providing a ‘sheep dip’ approach to project management, and the consensus was that This didn’t solve the real challenges that businesses and individuals are experiencing in this ever increasing complex world of project management. The vision was to hand-pick and work with the very best consultants, trainers and coaches worldwide so that Tailwind could really make a difference to their clients, to sit down with them, understand their pain points, what makes them tick, and what is driving their need for support.

These challenges being raised time and time again are in the project leadership space, from communication issues, not understanding stakeholder requirements or having the confidence to “push back”, lack of sponsorship support, working across different cultures, languages, levels of capability and complexity. We expect more from our project managers – we expect them to inspire, lead teams and be more confident.

Tailwind’s experience is vast, from providing interim resources in the project and programme management space, supporting the recruitment process, experiential workshops, coaching – from project managers through to executives, providing keynote speakers, implementing PPM Academies, PM Healthchecks and Leadership development. The approach is created often uniquely – to solve the real challenges of each of their individual clients.

http://tailwindps.com/

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How to Get Fired at the C-Level

I am delighted to announce the release of my new book – How to Get Fired at the C-Level: Why Mismanaging Change is the Biggest Risk of All

Getting fired at the C-level is easy – and this book will tell you exactly how to go about it with ruthless efficiency.

But perhaps not getting fired is your preferred outcome and, if that is the case, then you might have a challenge or two in the arena of strategy execution since the number one reason CEOs get fired is mismanaging change!

Leading executives, it seems, do too little about strategy implementation, do not apply the appropriate level of attention to such critical organisational change, and often relegate sponsorship and leadership to lower management, whilst the c-suite get on with their ‘day jobs’.

‘How to get fired at the C-level’ will explore this challenge, and since all challenges are really opportunities, will show ways to not only significantly reduce change failures but also how to dramatically raise the capability, speed, and success rates of delivering strategic change in your organisation.

It also offers a simple means to evaluate executive engagement, and to offer a series of very practical steps to let you be the person who puts the ‘C’ for change into the ‘C’ level.

Author: Peter Taylor is the author of the number 1 bestselling project management book ‘The Lazy Project Manager’, along with many other books on project leadership, PMO development, project marketing, project challenges and executive sponsorship.

In the last 4 years he has delivered over 200 lectures around the world in over 25 countries and has been described as ‘perhaps the most entertaining and inspiring speaker in the project management world today’.

www.thelazyprojectmanager.com – free podcasts also in iTunes

End User Involvement

There is an old software company joke about how to have simpler and more successful projects.

We all know that to get real buy-in for a new system of any sort you absolutely need to engage your end-users, the last in line that will actual use the technology. End-User involvement was the cry that went up all the time in pre-project engagements and scoping exercises. What did middle management really know about what was needed and what was a good or bad system? And don’t get me started on the executive level and their remoteness from reality of the business. Get me end-users and lots of them!

But as soon as you involved end-users life got complicated; they were a critical and demanding bunch, and time and effort grew exponentially according to the breadth and depth of end-user involvement.

And so the dark humour was that to ensure a faster sell and a quicker delivery get rid of the ‘hyphen’ – end-user involvement needed to become ‘end user involvement’ i.e. don’t involve them at all!

OK so that may have made you smile wistfully but the truth is that not involving end users is a recipe for eventual disaster.

Resistance to new systems (change) is as a result of three elements I believe.

• User – Fear/Exposure
• User – Experience/Simplicity
• User – Profit/Gain/Extras

Having been involved in many system implementations over the years you do need to tick all three boxes to get the smoothest of transitions to the new way of doing things and the fastest acceptance of this change.

Starting with the middle point the new system has to be ‘better’ than the existing one – easier to use – friendlier – acceptable. Get that right and it is a good platform for change acceptance but there is more.

The fear factor rates high on everyone’s agenda, we generally like the status quo and dislike change – even if we spend hours complaining about the inefficiencies and frustrations of the status quo!

A new system worries us because it might expose some weakness in our working methods, some old workarounds that aren’t good practice but ‘Hey, they get the job done right?’

This new-fangled all singing all dancing application is going to shine a light on things we would rather keep in the dark and well hidden from our peers and our managers.

This fear has to be considered and managed.

And finally why should we do all of this change, even if the fear is dealt with and the new system operates like a dream, if there is actually no personal gain. The call for change ‘for the greater benefit of the organisation as a whole’ means absolutely nothing if the result is that I have to work twice as hard to make that benefit a reality. What’s in it for me?

Change

It is important to understand the balance of change if you indeed want to succeed in such changes.

Without reaching some sort of ‘escape velocity’ you (or your end-users) will never do anything different. What we are talking here about reaching the point of conscious decision to help others or yourself make a personal change.

Look at it this way.

Change can be described as C(urrent), that is where you are now, and D(esire), where you want to be and B(enefit), which is the resultant reward for whatever change is undertaken.

For example:

Effect: My house feels crowded and noisy, and on top of that I have nowhere to put things… And this is making life less pleasant!

This can be described as: My current house is too small (C), I would like a bigger house (D), the benefit of having a bigger house would be more room for me and my family (B). E(ffects) are also important because they will force a change.

 

Now you may be in a number of states as far as change is concerned:

• You may lack any insight to your problems or need to change
• You may have insight but need a solution or plan
• You may have a plan but need some assistance in making it happen

For example:

• Lack of insight – Why does my house seem so crowded and noisy, with nowhere to put things?
• Insight but no plan – My house is too small what shall I do?
• Insight and plan – My house is too small, I need to move, how will I do this?

Against change

To move anyone towards change there is a balancing act that needs to be performed. There are a number of resistances that stop change taking place, or at least allow people to put up personal arguments against changing (these might be those small voices in your head that you hear from time to time):

• Cost – Everything has a perceived cost whether this is actual money that would need to be invested or just your time and effort (and distraction from other matters)
• Risk – A concern over what such change would bring about should it in some way fail and require recovery, the work to be redone or loss of face. Concern about the risk of failure and what that would mean to you and others
• Pain – Recognition that change usually means some form of pain that needs to be endured, the negative aspects of the process of change itself
• Hidden – It is often possible to uncover the first three points but there will often remain ‘hidden’ reasons that someone is resistant to such change.

This makes it hard to assess the ‘balance’ of resistance since while it may be possible to quantify and address the ‘cost’, ‘risk’ and ‘pain’ elements the ‘hidden’ ones remain hidden and therefore unquantifiable.

 

 

For change

The Formula For Change was created by Richard Beckhard and David Gleicher, refined by Kathie Dannemiller[1] and is sometimes called Gleicher’s Formula 3.

This formula (D x V x F x CL > R) provides a model for assessing the relative strengths affecting the likely success or otherwise of organisational change programmes.

Three factors must be present for meaningful organisational change to take place. These factors are:

• D = Dissatisfaction with how things are now
• V = Vision of what is possible
• F = First, concrete steps that can be taken towards the vision
• CL = Creative Leadership to navigate towards the vision

If the product of these four factors is greater than

• R = Resistance

then change is possible. Because D, V, and F are multiplied, if any one of them is absent or low, then the product will be low and therefore not capable of overcoming the resistance.

And for your end-users the resistance is:

• User – Fear/Exposure
• User – Experience/Simplicity
• User – Profit/Gain/Extras

To ensure a successful change it is necessary to use influence and strategic thinking in order to create vision and identify those crucial, early steps towards it. In addition, the organisation must recognise and accept the dissatisfaction that exists by communicating industry trends, leadership ideas, best practice and competitive analysis to identify the necessity for change.

And you have to make sure that you don’t end user involvement but you value end-user involvement because they will make it a success.

 

Peter Taylor

‘Progress isn’t made by early risers, it is made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something’

Peter Taylor is the author of two best-selling books on ‘Productive Laziness’ – ‘The Lazy Winner’ and ‘The Lazy Project Manager’.

In the last 4 years he has focused on writing and lecturing with over 200 presentations around the world in over 20 countries and has been described as ‘perhaps the most entertaining and inspiring speaker in the project management world today’. He also acts as an independent consultant working with some of the major organizations in the world coaching executive sponsors, PMO leaders and project managers.

His mission is to teach as many people as possible that it is achievable to ‘work smarter and not harder’ and to still gain success in the battle of the work/life balance.

More information can be found at www.thelazyprojectmanager.com and www.peterbtaylor.co.uk – and through his free podcasts in iTunes.

Book him for:

• Keynote Presentations and Lectures
• Master of Ceremonies/Event Host
• Inspirational Workshops
• Training
• Coaching
• Authoring

 

[1] The original formula, as created by Gleicher and authored by Beckhard and Harris, is: C = (ABD) > X where C is change, A is the status quo dissatisfaction, B is a desired clear state, D is practical steps to the desired state, and X is the cost of the change. It was Kathleen Dannemiller who dusted off the formula and simplified it, making it more accessible for consultants and managers.