Chapter 10
In Transition: Assessing Your Progress and Acting Accordingly
In This Chapter
Tracking how the project is going
Rewarding jobs well done
Keeping momentum going in the midst of change
Applying what you’ve learned to future projects
Making corrections when things go wrong
Your change project is well underway. However, you can’t just get the ball rolling and take a break. You have work to do while the change is happening and your organization is in transition. Your role as a change leader now moves out of the “planning and envisioning the change” stage to overseeing the changes and supporting the team and organization while the change is in motion.
In this chapter we introduce a transition model checklist with steps that exponentially increase the likeliness of success in your change project. We then walk you through the celebration of change and help you not only designate markers for success but also positively recognize individuals and groups for their efforts along the way and build confidence in the future. Because all changes need a little boost during the change lifecycle, we also give you essential tips on how to maintain energy when interest in the change starts to wane. And finally, you find out about a word no one likes to talk about during change: failure. We walk you through what to do if you fail, how to make midcourse adjustments if the change gets derailed, and most importantly, how to do everything in your power to increase the probability of success.
Checking Your Progress: The Transition Model Checklist
If you planned and organized your change effectively (see Parts I and II), delivering on the change should be the easy part of your project. Basically, you’re just doing what you said you would do. In this section we take a look at a transition model checklist, a simple tool to make sure your project is set to deliver the results you want. The list is broken up into five categories of accomplishments that you and your team will reach as you successfully complete the change project. You’ll probably want to review the checklist on your own (something of a self-assessment) and with your core team.
Most likely, you probably are already delivering on some of your critical milestones. Even though your change project may be moving at full speed, run through the checklist to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything.
Vision:
You’ve created an energizing and bold sense of the future and articulated this vision to others in the company.
Other people are asking lots of questions and beginning to embrace the idea of change.
You know your key allies and you’ve reached out to them, building vital networks to launch and support your change initiative.
Road map:
You have a plan in place to get you from the current to future state.
You’re comfortable with what’s coming up next (for both you and your team) to move the change forward.
You’ve created a training plan to give people the skills they need in the new environment. (You may not have the training content in place just yet, but making sure this step is on your plan ensures they know that they will learn everything they need to about the change.)
Team:
You have a team of at least three to five energized change agents with clear roles and responsibilities — plus all the skills needed to make the change happen.
Your team has a strong connection to the executive level to help drive the change.
Leaders are walking the talk and modeling the new behaviors within the organization.
The core team has minimal conflicts of interests. If your core team is beginning to fight and disagree early on, you need to resolve these conflicts before moving forward with the change.
Your team leads by example and challenges the status quo.
You’ve instilled a sense of cooperation on the team, giving everyone a chance to problem solve instead of merely following orders.
Measurements:
You have visible, practical ways of tracking progress, and you know your objectives (see Chapter 6 for more on measurement development).
You hold people accountable for these milestones.
You’ve scheduled frequent ways to track results of the change effort and communicated the results as the change progresses.
Communication:
You regularly update your team, organization, and leadership on the change journey.
You engage in frequent feedback sessions with the organization, key employees, and leaders in the company to make sure the pulse of the organization is heard loud and clear.
The checklist is not a pass or fail list; it is simply a guide to keep you on track. If you find yourself checking off all the items, move on to the section “Celebrating Milestones” to give yourself the proper pat on the back. If your transition phase isn’t going so well, flip to the section “Bouncing Back from Failure: What to Do When You Come Up Short” to get back on your feet.
Celebrating Milestones
Celebrating milestones is something you have been doing since you had your first birthday. Celebrating milestones during a change effort is really no different; unfortunately, noticing the milestones isn’t as easy as putting a date on the calendar. You defined your milestones in Chapter 5; if you look back on them and feel that you’ve met them successfully, read this section to figure out how to celebrate them appropriately and identify what type of rewards fit the performance. This process may appear to be a little harder than making a birthday cake and lighting candles, but with our help it’s as easy as pie!
Even when you hit a marker of success, retain your focus and energy. The markers of success are indicators that you’re moving in the right direction, not guarantees. Just because you hit one marker doesn’t mean all the others will fall perfectly into line — you have to keep your eye on the end goal until the change is complete.
Everyone likes to be thanked and rewarded for hard work and commitment. Celebrating and rewarding success improves morale and acknowledges the behaviors or actions that help drive the success forward. Recognizing individuals and groups is a terrific way to maintain positive momentum for the change. Recognition for individuals’ contribution to the success of the project or the achievement of critical success markers falls into three basic categories: economic, public recognition, and job satisfaction.
When it comes down to it, recognizing employees and motivating employees are very similar. Chapter 8 discussed great ways to motivate employees throughout your change project, and Chapter 9 mentioned ways of rewarding your MVPs and helping them cope with stress. Don’t forget to use those methods to help propel your recognition for all individuals and groups during the change effort.
Giving economic rewards (Money!)
Money is a great motivator for some people (okay, a lot of people). But remember, it isn’t the only motivator, and you need to be sure to tie it to the behavior you are rewarding. A $10 gift card is probably not a great reward for someone who led a change that saved millions of dollars for the company, but neither is a 10 percent raise for someone who simply did his job. Don’t throw those gift cards to the coffee shop in the trash just yet: Small rewards are appropriate for attaining smaller goals (like finishing a project plan), saying thanks to a particular unexpected effort (catching typos on a corporate message before it was sent out or helping another team member), or just to keep the motivation going when the change seems a bit overwhelming.
Publicly recognizing accomplishments
If your company has a recognition program for high performers, use it to distinguish key players throughout and after the change. When individuals or teams have done a great job, make sure you mention them in newsletters, on the internal website, or in e-mails. If significant work has been done, consider having an organization-wide meeting to update everyone on the progress of the change effort and publicly recognize the key groups and individuals that have played noteworthy roles in the success. You can also allow individuals to share their personal experiences through stories of how the change effort has benefited them to date (we talk more about storytelling later in this chapter). You can also bring in key customers or leaders to share their appreciation.
Lots of managers want to recognize individuals and groups with team luncheons or dinners, and although this type of gathering is a great team-building activity, it may not be fully appreciated by the team. If team members has been working 24/7 to get the change implemented, they may appreciate a catered lunch in the office or you picking up the tab on a dinner with their families instead of spending three more hours with their lovely co-workers.
Counting on increased job satisfaction
As simple as it sounds, most people want to do a good job and be happy in their job. Use this simple fact to reward employees and teams for a job well done. You can give them the great assignments, allow freedom to do what they want (within limits), ask for their feedback into even bigger changes or strategies for the organization, or invite the team to participate in key business-planning sessions. At the end of the day, if employees are happy in their jobs, they will deliver results, which is exactly what you want: Happy employees delivering results to drive the change forward.
To find out what rewards may be most appreciated by groups or individuals, ask the employees for their WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) requests. Go back to Chapter 7 for a WIIFM refresher if you need one.
Maintaining Mid-Change Interest
Maintaining interest in your project may not seem like a big problem to worry about, but it deserves some discussion. If the interest begins to lag, so will the momentum. Then you may have to go back and redo most of the planning for the change to pick up the pieces and get it moving again (something no one wants to do, no matter how much they love planning, visioning, and the initial communicating!).
Mid-change interest dropping is usually not caused by a malicious plot to stall the change project (really, it is not). Often, the reason it occurs is often just because people have no idea what is happening and begin to assume that nothing is happening. While the core change team may be working along very smoothly, employees may wonder what is happening behind the scenes. As we emphasize throughout this book, communication with everyone in the organization is critical to keep the change effort in the front of everyone’s mind.
Now is a good time not only to reflect on your accomplishments so far but also to paint a clear picture of what the second half of the journey will look like. Now is also a good time to revisit your vision and remind people of the benefits the change will provide to the organization, employees, and customers. Let employees know that they need to pace themselves for what lies ahead. As everyone knows, success breeds success, so build on what you have been able to accomplish so far and use your knowledge and skills gained along the way to propel you into success for the rest of the change journey.
The best way to maintain mid-change energy is to walk the talk — you need to keep your energy up. The general mid-change attitude is kind of how marathoners feel around mile 22 of the 26.2 mile run (that would be kilometer 35 out of 42 for those of you on the metric system). Hitting the wall is runner speak for the feeling that you can go no further, and change projects can hit a wall, too. One of the biggest reasons for failure in change is that leaders declare victory too early or assume that when the change is 80 percent done it will continue on without the leader’s dedication and interest. Don’t fall into this trap! When you see interest fading or feel like you have hit your own change wall, take a deep breath, gather the team together, and push through to the finish line.
If you have done a good job celebrating your successes and recognizing and rewarding key personnel and teams, you should already be in a good position to maintain the organization’s interests in your change project.
Building Confidence in Future Successes
Successful change can do wonders to build confidence in employees, and that confidence can be used immediately to create future success. We have seen many successful changes springboard an organization to a new playing field in their industry, but you can’t just move on to the next project and expect the change to be a springboard without planning (you knew we would say that, right?).
After a major change, employees (and you) need a break. Major-league sports stars need an off-season to recover from the big game, and employees and organizations need time to recover from the big change. The trick is maintaining momentum and confidence during the off-season.
When successfully executing a change, reflect and re-think your methods to make the next change or next big project be an even bigger success without reinventing the wheel. Two ways to build confidence in future successes are to maintain the organizational knowledge about how the change is happening (not just what’s changing) and make the change a living, breathing story to inspire others to want to do it again.
Maintaining organizational knowledge
Before the change is complete, devote energy to how your organization can transfer what everyone has learned to future projects. To get the most from your experience, you want to evaluate not only how well the change is occurring but also how you can improve the way things are done in the future.
Although we love (and recommend) documenting how processes are done, that is a very small piece of the puzzle when it comes to organizational knowledge. We tap into how and what to document in Chapter 11 when we discuss closing the project, but you can do many other things to maintain organizational knowledge that doesn’t involve process maps, flow charts, or an elaborate system to capture all of these great pieces of work.
To help maintain organizational knowledge, we recommend creating communities of practice, asking employees to train others, and developing coaching and mentoring programs. In the following sections, we explain how.
Creating communities to practice new skills and knowledge
Frequently called communities of practice or centers of excellence, these groups are teams of employees that meet to share best practices, ask the group for ideas on how to solve problems, and leverage their joint knowledge to work on day-to-day and strategic issues. During your change, this group may be part of the change team; after the change, ask the group members if they would be open to meeting on a monthly or quarterly basis to talk about how they continue to use the change tools in their new jobs and perhaps even learn new ones. An added bonus to creating communities that practice new skills and knowledge: This type of a forum allows people to ask one another for some of the heaps of information on each other’s work computers — which can reduce the need to reinvent the wheel every time a change comes up.
These teams may not be part of the same group within the organization, so the communities tend to have a less formal feel to them. These communities can meet face-to-face or on conference calls, and some communities simply use a blogging website to post questions and provide user-generated answers to challenging problems.
Asking employees to train other employees
Training is a wonderful tool, but it can be expensive and is frequently only focused on classroom learning with little follow-up after students complete the course. You can change this practice to make sure knowledge is captured and maintained by training employees on how to provide training to other employees. If one person goes to training, she learns how to do things a different way; if one person goes to training and then shares her knowledge with the entire team, the entire team learns the new way of doing things. The trained employee doesn’t need to give the entire course to others; she can simply share documents and tools or provide a forum for the entire team to acquire and maintain knowledge.
Developing coaching and mentoring programs
In most organizations, mentoring and coaching programs, whether informal or formal, are a “we-have-one-but-are-not-really-using-it-well” tool. Ask your change team to take the lead in coaching others on how to lead change or even one aspect of change. This coaching does two things: It provides a certain level of prestige to your high performers (they are now mentors) and it helps transfer and maintain knowledge, even in the most complex environment. If you need help starting the mentoring and coaching process, pick up a copy of Coaching & Mentoring For Dummies (written by Marty Brounstein and published by Wiley) and starting coaching away.
Creating your change story
Stories are powerful tools for change and for future change. You created a story of the future state when you began to plan your change, and now it is time to create your story of what happened and how it happened and make sure it is now part of the culture of the organization. Think back to your favorite childhood story and how you were completely engaged in every word, every picture — you could probably repeat most of the story today even if it has been years (decades) since you last read it. To create that same type of story for change, you can follow these seven principles:
Have a clear purpose for the story. Decide if the goal of the story is to give people a can-do attitude or to show how the change made the company and employees’ lives better. Then write down the purpose of the story in one sentence. You may have a few stories for a big change, each with a different purpose.
Pick a vivid example of change. If the goal of the story is to build confidence in future success, find a vivid example of how the team overcame obstacles to achieve a significant milestone during the project. If the goal of the story is how the organization operates differently in the new environment, pick an example of how your customers, employees, and management are all doing better, bigger things because of the change.
Tell the truth. We hate to have to say it, but make sure the story is true, not just corporate folklore.
Keep it simple. We aren’t asking for a novel here. Keep the story to 90 seconds or so. Tell what happened, who was involved, where it happened, and what the result was.
Link the story to results. One of the goals of change is to accomplish some metric or milestone, so try to incorporate reaching this achievement in the story.
Link the story to future success. Remind your audience to imagine how great all projects and changes can be if they are able to capture the same energy and focus of the change you just went through.
Re-tell the story to further institutionalize it. Find other ways to re-tell or share the story (such as through employee newsletters, company intranet, or whatever else you use for company-wide communication).
You don’t need to wait for everything to be said and done to create a story about change. A story that inspires teams to keep moving forward when interest wanes (which we discuss in a previous section) or when you have to make midcourse adjustments (which we get to in the next section) is one of the most powerful tools a change leader can have.
Bouncing Back from Failure: What to Do When You Come Up Short
You did everything you could do. You planned, you communicated, you created a great team. But when you assessed your progress with the transition model checklist (see the corresponding section in this chapter), you realize the project has gone splat! Even though you may be tempted to bang your head against the desk, don’t. Now is a great chance for you and your organization to learn from the change and maybe even get the project back on the right track.
As you lift your head up from your desk, you can start planning a “what now” session (sometimes called lessons learned or after-action review), but first remember that no one really is to blame. The company’s goals may have changed, the market or economy may have given the company surprises, or some other unforeseen event may have taken place. So don’t blame yourself, or others, for where the project is — that practice will lead you down the wrong path. No one likes to be blamed; it shuts people down and can make people defensive. Instead, focus instead on what happened and why and what the company can do differently going forward. As a change leader, you need to create an atmosphere of curiosity that helps others understand what happened and what the company can learn from the experiences.
Now that you have your pep talk, in the following sections we tell you what you can do to get your change back on track. First, we discuss what to do if your change has failed or stalled, and then we cover actions you can take if your change is on a slippery slope downhill but hasn’t yet failed.
Figuring out how to start over
A “what now” session can helps teams brainstorm new ideas to get a failed or stalled change back on track. Before the meeting, ask team members to think about what happened to stop the change and why. Remind the team to not place blame (give that little pep talk we just shared with you!). This preparation before the meeting will give the team time to think about what they learned from the change and start to diffuse any emotions that may be out there because of the failure. A great way to phrase this pre-work is, “What do we need to start doing (something different), what does the team need to stop (what didn’t go well or was not necessary), and what does the team need to continue (what went well)?”
At the meeting, ask team members to think through the following five key steps for each area of the project that either stalled or didn’t work out as planned:
What area failed? In other words, what didn’t work as planned? This area of failure can be anything from the project plan not being followed (time delay) to the supplier of a new information system not being able to deliver software that worked (we know this never, ever happens by the way; it is merely an example).
Why did this happen, and what are the implications? Now you can get down to the root cause of the failure. For example, if the information system wasn’t delivered on time or it wasn’t the quality you expected, was it because the project plan wasn’t clear, or were these expectations not communicated? Often, the root causes of failure can be boiled down to resources (not having the right skills, not having enough money), expectations not being clear, or the scope of the project changing.
What are the lessons learned? A failure on the project does not need to stop the project cold. If team members didn’t have the knowledge on how to hold meetings, then teach them, and make sure the lesson learned is captured as something like, “Did not provide adequate training” or “Assumed individuals already had skills needed.” Again, you’re not placing blame; you’re just trying to make sure the problem doesn’t reoccur.
What’s next? This “fork in the road” question covers: What is the next step, who is going to do what to fix this area, and does it need to be fixed or can we just move on? (We help you answer this question more fully in the next section: “Making midcourse adjustments.”)
Who needs to know? After a failure happens, you need to go back and communicate what happened and what is happening next to fix the problem.
When you kick off the meeting, make sure you lay some ground rules. Here are four critical ones to get the after-action discussion going:
Trust that your colleagues want(ed) to do the best job.
Avoid blaming anyone. Focus on what the team can do differently next time.
Avoid “shoulda, woulda, coulda” language. Instead, talk about impact and learning.
Identify areas where the organization still needs change or improvement, but focus on learning right now and not on inventing new solutions.
Making midcourse adjustments
Sometimes you see trouble coming before it arrives. Just as you may experience delays, road construction, or bad weather on a long cross-country road trip, you may spot problem areas up ahead and have to rechart your path on the change effort as well. This turn requires all the stakeholders to be creative, flexible, and willing to let go of prior plans and to think about new strategies to reach the destination. You may have to tweak (or rethink) previous plans and reengage the organization. Don’t worry; all your previous work was not in vain, and with some small adjustments you can most likely get back on the path to the future vision.
Here are some points to consider when revising plans:
Timing: Did we choose the wrong time to initiate the change project? Would postponing it to another time ensure greater success of the project?
Resources: Are changes needed in resources or funding for the plan? If money has stopped the change from happening, decide whether you can be creative with funding, move around resources, or modify the project to fit the budget.
Knowledge: Did a gap exist between critical knowledge and technical expertise? If the team didn’t have the skills or knowledge to do something, identify ways to get the team the training and then continue on the path.
Duration: Did the team underestimate the amount of time required for a particular step? This problem happens quite frequently — even with the best plans, things can take longer than expected. Your best move is to be open about this misjudgment, reassess the amount of time the task will take, and then get right back to work.
Retention: Did key players on the team leave? If you lose key resources to another company, you will have no choice but to backfill the position or move work to others on the team (which is why maintaining organizational knowledge is important). If a key team member is moved off the project, your job as a change leader is to voice this concern to leaders and help the entire organization know what the move means for the project. You may not get the team member back, but at least the consequences will be heard.
Commitment: Has commitment dwindled? See how to maintain interest (check out “Maintaining Mid-Change Interest” earlier in this chapter) and how to motivate employees and then make sure you don’t jump on the dwindling-commitment boat.
External forces: Has the external environment (customers, suppliers, or competitors) shifted the landscape? You can’t do much about external forces during change — they happen. You probably planned how to minimize this risk in Chapter 6, so if external forces are your problem, gather your change leaders together and change or adapt the assumptions and goals of the project as needed.
Increasing the probability of success going forward
The best way to increase the probably of success after you begin fresh or make a mid-change evaluation is to make sure you have a plan in place for things outside your control, have clear and realistic expectations, and maintain confidence when challenging times arise. This advice applies for any stage in the change game, but especially after you’ve noticed problems, tried to fix them, and want to see success for the rest of the change project.
Some things are always beyond your control, but contingency planning enables you to brainstorm and anticipate possible issues so they aren’t unpleasant surprises if they surface. Have a plan in place and ready to go in the event one of your obstacles shows up.
You also want to set expectations with your team and within the organization that more challenges may need to be dealt with along the journey. Even the best-planned journeys run into issues. Set expectations with employees that these surprises should be expected and not feared, and just because you’ve solved a few problems now doesn’t mean that more, different problems won’t arise.
Finally, maintain confidence in your own ability both to get things back on track and to encourage your team. Don’t be discouraged when faced with obstacles. Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times in his career and 30 times in the World Series, and the man didn’t give up (yeah, it’s another sports analogy; we can’t help ourselves). See challenges as mere obstacles to overcome as opposed to roadblocks that cause you to give up and go home. This attitude gives your team the confidence to make necessary course corrections along the way.