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Moving from one state to another involves a transitional state – steam becomes water before it becomes ice.

The same is true in organisations, where it is difficult to move from now to the future in one leap. The bigger the change, the more difficult to bridge the gap in one go and the more energy required.

Change decays over time and those leading change feel they have failed.

A different way to create change is to guide, rather than manage the process. Central to guiding is to create transitional entities (teams, roles, processes).

This temporary set-up allows people to review the journey and check the plans will be effective.

The approach has a number of benefits:

• Allows for assessment of risks, benefits and impacts
• Creates clear, modifiable transition plans
• Ensures small but vital changes are made during the transition
• Creates a more change capable organisation – one that will cope increasingly well with each successive wave of change.

The change process

Creating an internal change team facilitates change early. Where the change will be felt across the organisation, the change team helps to create an organisation-wide appreciation of the planned changes and their effects – before things start to happen.

Stakeholder walkthroughs give an opportunity to imagine the future and give initial reactions.

Everyone knows effective communication is critical to success during change and yet it is often left till the last (panic) moment.

Those affected need to know what to expect and strong sponsorship from the change visionary is essential. This does not have to be the CEO but it must be someone who can imagine living in this future – and be able to describe that place to others.

Change can have a long lead-time before it is truly assimilated and sponsors may come and go.

When sponsors move on, acknowledge it quickly and ensure full transfer of the sponsor’s commitment – or re-evaluate the new situation. Just letting the change drag and die is not good for anyone’s morale.

Getting started

Begin a change assignment with a group event consisting of senior managers, the change team, and any other change drivers.

This group articulates the reasons for change and what will be required. These sessions can become rather problem focused so ask what is going well too.

This helps the key influencers to enhance, and more deeply embed, the rudiments of tomorrow’s successful ways of working into today’s routine practices.

The workshop delivers:

• Change case – why must we do this?
• Change vision – what will it look like tomorrow?
• Change strategy – how will we do things differently?
• Change process – how will we move between now and the future?
• Change programme – what are the key milestones on our journey?

Common barriers to action

• Lack of organisation experience in the process of change
• Low energy and apathy
• Complacency - ‘Why change? We are good already!’
• Stop-start change process
• Change sponsor gets cold feet when the going gets tough
• Grapevine ignored, not monitoring the word on the streets
• Insufficient resources - Change Team spread too thin
• Unclear focus for the change.

Guide the change

The difficult step is getting things moving. Mobilisation requires energy from the change sponsor, energy that the change team must magnify and feed into the organisation.

The change team is pivotal in energising the organisation, the change sponsor and each other. Only with a constant source of energy will the change actually happen.

A transitional change team rides the waves of transformation better than permanent structures.

This team can set plans in motion and review what actually happens through their relationships with the organisation and allows them to guide the way change unfolds – rather than being held to deliver static plans that have become obsolete.

A beneficial approach

The traditional approach to change drives it from the top and the change is done to lower levels. It generally excludes those most affected until things have started to move.

Change is seen as controllable and therefore planning is done in detail for some months ahead.

Seeing change as unpredictable creates a different attitude that encourages temporary change tactics.

This approach engages more of the organisation, earlier, and calls for feedback as an essential part of sensing and staying on track. It recognises that detailed planning is best restricted to the short term on a rolling basis.

Vital to sustainability, this approach allows change to build on what works best for the organisation.

The use of temporary teams to bridge the transition phase increases the chance of successful change – not just in the moment, but for tomorrow’s business.

June 2006

Creating an internal change team quickly facilitates the change process from an early stage.

Mobilisation requires energy from the change sponsor, energy that the change team must magnify and feed into the organisation.