After over 30 years of change management consulting, Don Harrison, President of IMA, has a lot to say about implementing transformational change. In IMA's recent webinar on The Human Side of Transformational Change, Don shared his tips on how to improve execution success of these big, complex changes. He touched on topics such as:
Most clients we deal with in our change management consulting have several common challenges. Certainly there is the Sponsorship challenge. Second to that, and very much related, is the challenge of implementing cross-functional changes. At the heart of these cross-functional changes is the expressed (or unexpressed) desire to have the organization operate more collaboratively.
A common barrier to success for organizations seeking transformation is that there is inherent risk-aversion which becomes a cultural barrier to transformational change. If you are seeking to truly transform you just can’t do it if people are fearful of making decisions and taking some level of risk. One of the most common pathologies we see in organizations today is that risk-aversion has slowed down decision-making and progress to a virtual crawl.
There are many strategic changes that are highly desirable on paper but require a shift in the organization's culture. Changes like Shared Services, ERP implementations, Business Transformation, and Lean/Six Sigma have great potential upside value but may also go against the grain of the organization's culture. When you are dealing with a change that has cultural implications, you need to be prepared for one of two options!
Change Agents may not initially think they are working on a culture change, but there is a good chance that you may have one on your plate. Don Harrison, the developer of the Accelerating Implementation Methodology (AIM), likes to tell the story of a call he got a few years ago from a client. The client asked, "Don, can you come out to our site and give us a culture?"
Last week Microsoft's Chief Executive Steve Ballmer announced sweeping organizational changes. This radical restructuring is an attempt to drive innovation by breaking down organizational silos. As Ballmer noted, “To execute, we’ve got to move from multiple Microsofts to one Microsoft.”
As change management consultants, we are attuned to business trends and their implications for implementation. The next wave of change management methodology application may well be in building a "collaborative culture." The advent of social technology has brought with it increased emphasis on increasing communications and collaborations with external customers. But the real value of collaboration is largely untapped.
Can a change management methodology be the single solution to creating a change-adept organization? You might be surprised to learn that we would say no!
Organizations that are looking to survive and even thrive in a volatile economic environment recognize that being “change-adept” is more critical than ever. We all know that there is virtually an epidemic of change in organizations today. At the same time, there is not enough attention being paid to how to actually implement all those changes. Practically speaking, we need to clarify how to get from “here to there.” And it requires multiple capabilities, "including but not limited to" a change management methodology!
Creating a Cultural Fit is an important element of the AIM change management methodology. Your organization’s culture is arguably your greatest strategic asset. Your competition can potentially match your product or service. Competition can create a marketing strategy that’s equally powerful. But no competition will have your culture.
