Managing Change
May 4, 2010
Contributed by mentor Jeff Campbell, Chairman, CRT.
Humans don’t like change very much. It seems to go against our hardwiring as primates. We work hard to create reliable routines that we expect to produce a consistent flow of ripe bananas. And we behave badly when asked to adapt in ways that threaten the delivery of lunch.
The bad news is that we’re now living in an era in which the need to be increasingly adaptive is making change a constant feature of the business landscape. And, observing the flux and turbulence in the current socio-political-economic arena, one could be forgiven for thinking that things will only become more challenging as we enter the 2010’s.
We’re probably all familiar with two heavily used metaphors for types of change: the “burning platform” and the “frog in the pan”. When the platform is on fire and a 150-foot plunge into a stormy sea is the only option to becoming a crispy critter, the decision to jump becomes rather simple. It is easier to deal with change if the need for it is painfully obvious. The bigger challenge comes with the slow-to-develop threat that can be safely dismissed in its early stages (the frog in the pan) at the risk of foreshortened options later in the game.
Coaching your team through both kinds of change requires truly effective leadership techniques.
Now normally, I am not a big fan of most “business books”. I often find them a waste of paper and compendia of the obvious. The exceptions, however, have had some real impact on me. I first read Peter Senge’s “The Fifth Discipline” in 1990 and since have re-read it twice. Like many people, I truly found value in Jim Collins’ “Good To Great”. And I’ve just finished a book by Chip and Dan Heath called “Switch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard”. This one goes on my “keeper” list too.
The Heath brothers remind us of a couple of simple rules for managing change. We’ve probably all done everything in their tool box in our business lives and other leadership roles, but the value of the book as far as I’m concerned is in its pulling all the pieces together into a simple checklist. Of course, knowing what to do doesn’t solve the how. But the Heaths provide enough illustrations to make themselves clear. One of the best things about their examples is the number of actors they’ve chosen who were successful at leading change despite having both low rank and small budgets.
Here’s the 30,000 foot, Mach 2 version of their core ideas:
- Think of your employees – collectively – by using the metaphor of the “rider” and the “elephant”. The rider represents the intellectual part of the change challenge. The elephant represents its emotional content. To increase your chances of success in leading change, you need to attack both: directing the rider and motivating the elephant.
- Directing the rider calls for some familiar tactics. One is helping the team visualize its ultimate destination, a definition of “victory” that helps them visualize it. Another tactic is described by the Heaths as “scripting the critical moves”, i.e. providing a specific roadmap for the intended change. This tends to work all the more effectively when the team actually helps to craft that direction. Another approach the Heaths advocate is finding “the bright spots”, those people, departments, teams that are already enjoying success or headed there – whose behavior can be cloned across the broader organization.
- Motivating the elephant is all about emotion. Three prominent tactics are covered here. One calls for “shrinking the change”, finding a way to turn the strategic journey into nice, digestible chunks. It’s easier to sell taking just that first step when the full trip might be perceived as overwhelming. The second tactic the Heaths feature in this category is referred to as “finding the feeling” and it calls for identifying a technique for making the argument for change in a way that provokes an emotional response. The Heaths talk about a manager who wanted to make the point that his company’s procurement policies were breeding unnecessary costs and undisciplined, ill-defined specs for needed resources. His solution: dumping a stack of the 44 different work gloves the company bought in the middle of the conference room table. It made the point. Finally, the leader can connect the change desired with the team’s own image of itself. Most of us want to think what we do matters… and that we’re capable of great things. That fact provides a motivational opportunity for a skillful leader at any level.
- Finally, the Heaths talk about what they call “shaping the path”. These tools and tactics go a level deeper into group psychology and challenge the leader’s skill set more deeply. They include finding ways to restructure the operating environment as a way of enticing behavioral change, creating ways to encourage good team “habit” formation, and techniques for helping positive behaviors to metastasize.
If you’re like me, you’ve done most of these things somewhere along the way. But it’s probably been in fits and starts and the successful tactics you’ve employed may have often been as much the product of serendipity as of science. The Heaths’ book is a great tool for keeping a more comprehensive game plan for change management in your personal arsenal.
Jeff Campbell
Jeff Campbell is the former CEO of Burger King Corporation and a number of other restaurant companies as well as a former Senior Vice President of the Pepsi-Cola Company. He is currently the Brinker Executive in Residence at San Diego State University’s L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism and Chairman of San Diego’s Chairmen’s RoundTable.
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Thanks for the summary Jeff. The Heath brothers are good writers and have a nice way of bringing a simple approach to life. Their first book, Made to Switch was already on my favorites list and now I’ll have to read this one!
Comment by Holly Green — May 7, 2010 @ 4:00 am