So I have reflected on what makes for a successful change and on the various mistakes I have seen made in organisations. Based on this I have come to a few conclusions and a definition of my personal approach.
I call my approach Know - Learn - Grow. I see that in organisations that often the focus is on what people need to KNOW and not how they are going to LEARN what they need to KNOW. Then almost no effort is spent on determining how we want our people to GROW as a result of learning this new knowledge for the change. Measuring whether people have grown in the right way is how we determine if the change has been successful. However, time and time again I see little or no measurement being done.
The result of this lack of focus on learning & growing ends up with multiple communications being sent out with few if any calls to action or information sessions being held where information is dumped on audiences with no idea how to proceed. This doesn’t lead people to LEARN what they need to KNOW. Then you define project success as whether the IT support system goes live or you measure if people are ready for the change by counting the percentage of people that attended information sessions. On these metrics you count the change as a success but nobody has measured if anybody was able to GROW.
With this sort of situation people in the organisation are often not using the new system, or they are using it in inefficient ways. Sales can drop, customer satisfaction levels can reduce and employees can feel disconnected from their jobs or overwhelmed and burnt out.
This is where a quality change manager can help turn things around. They can help you define more complete measures of success to determine if your employees and business GROW in the right ways from a change. They can tailor communications using distribution methods that help your employees LEARN what they need to KNOW. These sorts of interventions help organisations to thrive through a change instead of being overwhelmed.
I have many thoughts around Know - Learn - Grow that I intend to share throughout the year, so I would love to hear if and how this resonates with people or if it doesn’t what doesn’t resonate. Look forward to hearing any thoughts.