Designing a New Code for Change – Part 3
How many executives believe the project status reports they receive? Actually, how many executives can actually use the information provided to make effective decisions?
Control Management
Happy New Year to you all and best wishes for 2010. Lets hope the year brings some economic recovery and balance. To kick off the New Year here are some thoughts by way of conclusion to part 1 &2 of this theme, a new code for change. You’ll know I argued previously that executives need to manage their context and internal capabilities in order to be effective at change. They do also need to put in place effective control, but this must be designed and deployed appro
priately to avoid many potentially costly pitfalls. How many executives sitting on investment appraisal boards today bemoan the lack of useful decision- making support they receive, whilst simultaneously being buried in delightfully presented Power- Point status reports and RAG ratings? Often, such reporting is justified as effective “control”, and yet the key decision-makers feel they have no control at all over the complex programs and size-able investments that they are sponsoring. Control is necessary to govern responses to feedback and ensure resources are managed to a plan, but all too often it tends to refer to activities that are “after the event”. Change management requires governance of emergent requirements, resource deployment and goal-focused activity.
As Elbert Hubbard (1915) noted,
“Many people fail in life not for lack of brains or even courage but because they never organise their energies around a goal properly”.
Dysfunctional behavior is a common problem in change management endeavors, because delivery of change requires the co-operation of people across political, organisational and cultural boundaries. An effective administration process will not address the issues that arise from such complexity. Control of an activity is somewhat purposeless unless it is directive. That is why I would contend that control of any programme must be aligned with business strategy, sponsor requirements and stakeholder interests throughout the change process. Mobilisation of the appropriate skilled resources to meet these requirements is vital for effective strategy realisation. This effort is usually under-estimated or ignored, being seen as uneccessary cost.
Never is this more important than post-acquisition, in a merger, or during a major integration. M&A pre-transaction due diligence is all very well in agreeing the appropriate deal valuation, but value realisation is a dream, unless effective change management is considered well before the management team is in place and then deployed effectively across the post-transaction organisation. Otherwise, investors will find the management team frantically back-pedaling to trying to re-negotiate objectives, or abandoning ship altogether.
Designing a New Code for Change
A recent Study of over 1000 CEOs resulted in the conclusion that successful organisations view change as a normal state in which values and goals provide alignment and leadership inspire and challenge rather than stabilize and control. The skill in managing change is also ensuring that the approach is based upon the specific organisations’ maturity, complexity and environment. Business cannot be adequately served by a “one size fits all” project management methodology: rather an eclectic framework ensuring that each organisation develops its own unique approach carries a higher probability of success. Indeed, today, the issue is not so much about cracking the code of change (as espoused by Beer and Noriah, 2000), than about writing a new code to help us manage change through these unprecedented economic times and into a better business future.
My colleagues and I have worked with many clients and also investigated at length 18 major models for change management espoused by experts from around the globe. Our conclusions have led to the identification of nine critical factors for success in change management, all of which we feel must be addressed by organisations requiring effective strategy realisation, combined with efficient management of resources (see Part 2 figure 2). My recommendation to businesses seeking to manage change is that they establish a framework that deals dynamically with context, capability and control. Change management is both a “soft” and a “hard” human endeavour, requiring a blend of techniques and a contingent approach. In such a challenging economic environment, effective change management is not found in increased administration and MS Powerpoint deployment, but in a pragmatic, flexible and adaptable framework which builds on the foundation of sound experience and knowledge of best practice. Drivers with a few Dakar Rally’s under their belt are more likely to be better drivers than graduates fresh out of driving school, even though the latter be able to follow the Highway Code rigidly.
References: Held, D et al. (1997) Global Transformations: Politics Economics and Culture, Cambridge: Polity; Beer, M et al. (2000) Cracking the Code of Change, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press; Dale, C (2007) ‘The Underlying Problems with Prince 2 (And Related Project Management Methodologies)’, London: Business Transition Technologies Ltd; Leppitt, N (2006) ‘Challenging the Code of Change: Praxis Does Not Make Perfect’, Journal of Change Management, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 121–42. IBM Global CEO Study 2008.
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