This seems like a relatively easy question to answer.
But those of you who work in the Transformation space, know it is most certainly not. One of the reasons is that we as humans are creatures of habit, who naturally migrate back to the ‘old ways’ of doing things. A colleague recently likened this to walking along a sand dune: First of all, it is hard to actually scramble up the sand dune to walk along the top of it. Then staying on top takes on-going dedication, effort and commitment. As you constantly slip down the side of the dune, the temptation to just let yourself slide all the way back down to the well-trodden path at the bottom is huge.
It is the same with any change programme: first of all, initiating change can be hard. Making the case for why things should be done differently can be hard work. Especially if colleagues are weary and feel like they have been through enough change already. And then, it’s not just about getting yourself up that sand dune – it’s about taking the entire organisation with you and helping those that ‘slip back down’ to the old ways of doing things to stay the course. And when one or two have already slipped down and are reluctant to climb back up, it’s easy for more and more colleagues to decide that they too, would prefer to take the easier path at the bottom. And go back to the familiar ways of doing things rather than change. As, when it comes to organisational change you are not just dealing with changing the behaviours of one person (obviously!), but many hundreds of colleagues, who are all pulled towards the old ways of doing things over and over again.
Another reason why change is hard, is because of how we are wired as humans. The neural pathways that are well established in our brains are the path of least resistance and the easiest (and most energy efficient) for our bodies to keep treading. So, any change – whether this is about going to the gym regularly or coming into the office more, means that our brains have to carve out new neural pathways. And this - similar to the sane dune metaphor, takes effort and energy. At least until that new neural pathway (and therefore the new behaviour) is established enough.
So, the million-dollar question, for all of us OD experts out there is, how DO you effectively implement change in organisations then? The easy (but far too vague to do anything with) answer is: It is a multi-faceted process with lots of individual levers that, over time, gradually make a difference and effect change….
In practice, what this might look like is:
Engaging with your senior leadership really early on and getting them to genuinely lead the way. If they are not the champions of change, persuading others in the organisation to take that leap and ‘climb up the sand dune’ is even harder, as they’ll be less convinced it is worth all the effort, if the senior leaders are staying on the (much easier) well-trodden path at the bottom. And those change champions that are prepared to lead the way will very quickly become exhausted (and either burn out or leave the organisation), if nobody else follows.
How you engage with your senior leadership is also key. I think often, we ask them to tell us too broadly what change they want to see. When what we really need them to do is to is work through a facilitated SWOT type discussion together to share with the OD team the threats and opportunities, they see in the current environment the organization is operating in and the direction of travel the leadership team want to take. And then in the context of this discussion, the question needs to be answered: what behaviours do you need your people to demonstrate to be able to successfully navigate this future?
And then following on from 2, how you engage and involve staff is also key. So often we ask colleagues what change they think the future culture needs, or worse ‘culture change’ is delegated to a select few in the HR team to ‘deliver’. When what colleagues can realistically answer, is - based on the SWOT analysis completed by the senior leaders and the desired behaviours they have articulated – they can answer the question of what environment they will need to operate in, so that they can show the desired behaviours that their leaders have stipulated. And then the OD or HR team can take these two elements and start to build out what this looks like in practice to implement.
The next key element is then to identify ways to start to embed the desired new behaviours – right from the top. So, if one change is to empower people more, the leadership team may start to give colleagues more control over budgets. This is a very tangible way to create the environment that demonstrates to colleagues that things really are changing and look and feel different. And this in turn will mean that colleagues are more likely to invest in the effort of changing their own behaviours around this (and stay on that sand dune). Lighting a number of these ‘fires’ of change around the business (i.e. having a variety of change projects that all add up to the overall desired organsational change) will mean that the ‘new ways of doing things’ will become more and more the norm – and self-reinforcing (rather than the old!)
If this has whet your appetite, come and join me for a 90 minute discussion on OD and Culture Change on Friday 21st June from 11-12.30pm. You can book on to the course here. I’d love to see you.
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