A behavior-focused approach to organizational change in eight steps: assess readiness with CEO commitment, build change champions, co-create the plan with executives, gather frontline feedback directly, engage senior leaders in design, monitor and adapt continuously, turn resistors into allies with resources, and evaluate against your original diagnosis. The formula dissatisfaction times vision times first steps must exceed resistance.
Chapters
The stepped approach I was talking about before that brings together the behavioral with the traditional change management is in 8 steps. The first one is to know the readiness of the system itself. We call this change readiness assessment. How ready is your system really for change? Is it at a point where it's so much turmoil or chaos that it's difficult to find those entry points? And in those times, is your CEO fully ready to commit to that change and their own behavior change inside the system, put themselves on the line to be able to implement their strategies and have successes with their strategies inside the system? If yes, it's time to move forward. You have to get that yes though, and that actual yes from that CEO who's ready to go. Number 2 is developing a strong team, a very robust, strong, functional team of change champions. In my book Change Champions, we talked about that. These are people who hold the torch for you and spark the light for your change program. These people formerly could have been those who resisted the change program and began, began to become part of it because we gave them the chance to. So change champions are essential, and we make them stakeholders in the system to give advice, enlist others. These are the folks you're always going to go back to for advice and feed forward, your stakeholder system to make things happen. Number 3, inside of your action learning programs, the programs with your stakeholders, both in the middle and at the top with senior executives, create a plan together. Don't just present your change plan, create it together so you know exactly the parts and pieces that you will operationalize both transactional and transformational change. Again, transactional change, to go back to transactional change, It's a change like a system inside of a company or some— or an IT system, whereas transformational change is more behavioral. So co-creating this change plan is transformational because people get a part in that change plan, and it's transitional because there's operational components and logistics to work out the dynamics behind the change plan. Number 4, you need to get some sort of advice. About that change plan from inside your organization. No surveys. Go out and talk to people. Identify those who can really help you with this change plan and understand what it means to them in the front lines, in the middle, and at the top. Number 5, it's time to go up to the top and co-create with the senior executives and really enlist and understand their design of that presentation and how they'll work with the CEO to make it happen. These stakeholders are essential to help the CEO to adjust and move the ship throughout this change plan. Best CEOs get that kind of advice from their plans and move, move forward based upon that advice and co-creation. Get it across multiple channels from the organization, up and down, vertically and laterally. Figure out what those things are that help people so that they see the benefits and the things that they'll get out of the program. Adoption is critical because if I don't know what's going to help me based upon this change program and why I should take part in it, there's no reason for me to do it. So what do I get as a result of being part of this oh-so-important change program and being ex— extremely clear about where we're going. Kathleen Denham Miller taught me a very simple way of thinking about change. Dissatisfaction times vision times first steps is always greater than resistance. When you have clarity of that vision and your first steps, people will go with you. And especially if they know their dissatisfaction and what they're getting as a result of going with you, life will be good. Be sure to monitor and adapt that system as you go along. Continuous change is essential. Work inside, understand where it's at, and then continuously adapt and evolve. Number 7, look out for those people inside your, your system who have that R that I just talked about from Kathleen Danahmiller, resistance. They're your friends. We wanna know what they say and what their challenges are in the system. And infuse them into the change champions I talked about formerly in the process. What do they need to do? What do they need to do to appreciate the system and move forward? Consequences, carrot and stick, are a thing of the past. Telling them that if you don't do this, life won't be so good for you is not gonna work out so well. Instead, make up champions, get them what they want and need and the resources to make it happen. That's what I found in my book, In Great Company, that the best leaders, whether it be John Tu of Kingston Technologies, Gary Ridge of WD-40, did one important thing. They gave people resources and made it worth their while to make awesome change inside of a company that made sense and was values-based. That makes things work. Carrot and stick don't work. Last step. Now it's time to continuously evaluate. Well, now you evaluate itself. How did we do compared to our initial diagnostic in the system? Did we achieve what we need to achieve? Did the people who co-created feel like they were part of it? Did they celebrate it themselves? Make it a nice way to celebrate. Ask them the way they would like to celebrate and create this kind of new system that they just have created. This will make them really know that they created something bigger, larger than themselves, and an organization that will always win. Because when you treat an organization or human like a problem, you may win or you may lose, but if you treat it like a human system, you'll always win.
