Everyone recognizes the need to change, so why is it so difficult for organizations and people to embrace change? One data point that has been floating around for over 20 years is that 70% of organizational change initiatives fail. Ironically, despite the ubiquity of this "fact," it was first suggested in 1993 as nothing more than an "unscientific estimate." The reason this statistic has been repeated so often for so long is that it comes close to matching our own experiences--more specific and recent research has since found that only 54% of executives say change initiatives at their companies are adopted and sustained.
Clearly, this is a tremendous issue that defies easy solution. Every failed change initiative is not just a missed opportunity but also an expensive mistake--one study found that one of every six large IT projects go so badly that they can threaten the very existence of the company.
So how can we individually be more effective at being change agents in our personal and professional lives? First, we need to appreciate that:
There is no such thing as a change agent. That may sound odd considering I’m writing about being a better change agent, but this is a skill, not an ability. It is not something you are born with but something you can improve upon. All of us are change agents—none of us gets the luxury of waiting for others to change us, and that means we must sharpen our skills.
Being a change agent is risky: No matter how much business leaders say they want change agents, being a change agent is risky. Change agents fail, stumble in their career and can damage their reputation. We must appreciate that advocating for change entails risk, which is why it is essential we are aware of the specific risks and work to mitigate them.
People hate change. We humans like to feel safe and comfortable, and change is risky and discomforting. Successful change agents must know how to inspire people, helping them to see and embrace the benefits of change.
If we do these three things—sharpening our own skills, mitigating risks and inspiring people—we can succeed at leading change.
4. Studies Validate Change is Hard
75% of business and IT executives admit that their projects are either
always or usually “doomed right from the start.” (Geneca, 2011)
Employers felt 55% of change management initiatives met initial
objectives, but only 25% felt gains were sustained over time. (Towers
Watson, 2013)
Only 54% of executives say change initiatives at their companies are
adopted and sustained. (Booz & Company 2013)
17 percent of large IT projects go so badly that they can threaten the
very existence of the company. (McKinsey 2012)
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 4
5. 10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 5
Any change, even a change for the better, is always
accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
Arnold Bennett
6. Three Realities of Change Agency
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 6
Advocating for
change is risky
People hate change
There is no such
thing as a
change agent
Inspire people
7. Three Realities of Change Agency
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 7
Advocating for
change is risky
People hate change
There is no such
thing as a
change agent
Inspire people
8. Hone your change agent skills
Resilience
Patience
Self-awareness
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 8
Networking
Communication
Facilitation
Love of learning
Contrarian thinking
Analysis
9. Critical Thinking
Skills and Habits
Change Must Be Anchored in News and Trends
People do not adopt change for change’s sake—
there must be a pressing opportunity or challenge,
so change agents:
Schedule time every day to read and learn.
Adopt tools to gather info (alerts, newsletters,
Flipboard, follow thought leaders, etc.) and save
information (OneNote, Evernote, etc.)
Curate news in their social channels, becoming a
source of information for others.
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 9
Love of Learning
Contrarian Thinking
Analysis
10. Critical Thinking
Skills and Habits
Change Contradicts Conventional Wisdom
By the time everyone sees the opportunity or
threat, it is too late. To see what others do not,
change agents:
Practice discomfort with complacency, seeking
new, better ways.
Consider untraditional information outside their
industries or even outside the business world.
Accept nothing. Challenge everything. Don’t zig
when everyone zags; just question why.
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 10
Love of Learning
Contrarian Thinking
Analysis
11. Critical Thinking
Skills and Habits
Change Only Occurs When Others Are Convinced
Business leaders do not until they are convinced it
is necessary and confident in the outcome.
Change agents must:
Remove passion and biases.
Use your network to challenge your pitch.
Embrace the risks.
Identify and prepare for objections.
Build a logical case.
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 11
Love of Learning
Contrarian Thinking
Analysis
12. Three Realities of Change Agency
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 12
Advocating for
change is risky
People hate change
There is no such
thing as a
change agent
Inspire people
13. Being a Change Agent is Risky
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 13
Ron Johnson 15 years
12 years
18mo
Introduced design partnerships
such as Michael Graves
Oversaw launch of
Apple Stores
Dismissed after “the worst quarter in retail history”—a
25%+ drop in same-store sales in one quarter
14. Being a Change Agent is Risky
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 14
Ron Johnson
“When I got to Penney’s, I had no choice
because I was told people wanted change,
but the truth is nobody wanted change.”
15. What Went Wrong at JCP?
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 15
Ron Johnson
Traded sales promotions for “fair & square” prices.
Swapped brands JCP shoppers wanted for high-
end brands beyond the budget of the traditional
customer.
Initiated plan with no tests, focus groups or pilots.
Attempted to run JCP like a startup.
Punished skeptics. “I don’t like negativity.
Skepticism takes the oxygen out of innovation.”
Replaced leaders who understood JCP business.
16. The Building Blocks of Change
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 16
Capital
Process
People
Culture
Customer
Traded sales promotions with “fair & square” prices.
Swapped brands JCP shoppers wanted for higher-end
brands; offered items beyond the budget of the
traditional Penney’s customer.
Initiated plan with no tests, focus groups or pilots.
Attempted to run JCP like a startup.
Punished skeptics. “I don’t like negativity. Skepticism
takes the oxygen out of innovation.”
Replaced leaders who understood JCP business.
17. Build Capital Diligently, Spend It Wisely
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 17
Capital
Process
People
Culture
Customer
Being a change agent requires you amass personal
capital. Political winds change often. To mitigate risks:
Seek sponsors and mentors and listen to them
Build a network and engage with them
Seek approval and support
Own up to mistakes
18. Keep the Customer King
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 18
Capital
Process
People
Culture
Customer
Do not forget to put the customer at the center of
your thinking. To mitigate risks:
Base ideas on documented customer needs,
behaviors and perceptions.
Don’t alienate current customers while striving to
attract new ones
Develop ideas for those customers that are
strategic targets for your organization.
19. Process Is Your Friend, Not the Enemy
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 19
Capital
Process
People
Culture
Customer
Process frustrates change agents, which is why it is
twice as important they respect the process. To
mitigate risks:
Seek partners with project management skills to
help create project plans
Create a logical, staged plan
Test, test, test
20. Work Within the Existing Culture
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 20
Capital
Process
People
Culture
Customer
Culture changes slowly, and change agents get more
done when they work with rather than against
existing culture. To mitigate risks:
Align your ideas to current strategic initiatives
Understand and respect organization structure
Consider corporate mission and values
21. Make People Allies
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 21
Capital
Process
People
Culture
Customer
People don't resist change. They
resist being changed.
Peter Senge
22. Three Realities of Change Agency
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 22
Advocating for
change is risky
People hate change
There is no such
thing as a
change agent
Inspire people
23. Inspire People to
Embrace Change
Make Change Worth Everyone’s While
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 23
Change Goals & Rewards
Raise the Pain (a Little)
Create a Positive Vision
Involve People
It is difficult to get a man to
understand something, when his
salary depends upon his not
understanding it!
Upton Sinclair
24. Inspire People to
Embrace Change
Make Change Worth Everyone’s While
Change goals and rewards to reward the right
behavior. To inspire people:
Identify the goals and metrics that measure the
behaviors you wish to change
Change reward systems to compensate people
for the right behaviors; for example, employees
will not become more oriented to customer
satisfaction if they are only rewarded for
productivity, efficiency or sales
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 24
Change Goals & Rewards
Raise the Pain (a Little)
Create a Positive Vision
Involve People
25. Inspire People to
Embrace Change
Help People To See Why They Must Change
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 25
Change Goals & Rewards
Raise the Pain (a Little)
Create a Positive Vision
Involve People
And the day came when the risk
to remain tight in a bud was more
painful than the risk it took to
blossom.
Anaïs Nin
26. Inspire People to
Embrace Change
Help People To See Why They Must Change
Change is painful, but the eventual pain of failing to
change is even greater. To inspire people:
Realize that change can threaten jobs—plan for
the concern, be candid and help people change
Encourage people to understand the risks of not
changing and the benefits of changing
Make it about them…
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 26
Change Goals & Rewards
Raise the Pain (a Little)
Create a Positive Vision
Involve People
27. Inspire People to
Embrace Change
Encourage People To See Their Futures Positively
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 27
Change Goals & Rewards
Raise the Pain (a Little)
Create a Positive Vision
Involve People
I alone cannot change the world,
but I can cast a stone across the
waters to create many ripples.
Mother Teresa
28. Inspire People to
Embrace Change
Encourage People To See Their Futures Positively
Make change personal and exciting. To inspire
people:
Paint a picture of how change will bring benefits
to employees
Create a plan to support employees
Commit the time and resources necessary
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 28
Change Goals & Rewards
Raise the Pain (a Little)
Create a Positive Vision
Involve People
29. Inspire People to
Embrace Change
People Embrace Change When They Have a Voice
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 29
Change Goals & Rewards
Raise the Pain (a Little)
Create a Positive Vision
Involve People
You teach me, I forget.
You show me, I remember.
You involve me, I understand.
E. O. Wilson
30. Inspire People to
Embrace Change
People Embrace Change When They Have a Voice
Support and impetus for change comes top-down.
Adoption of change comes bottom-up. To inspire
people:
Listen and react to hopes, ideas and concerns
Tell people what; let them have a say in how
Provide the time necessary for change—plan for
storming, norming and performing
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 30
Change Goals & Rewards
Raise the Pain (a Little)
Create a Positive Vision
Involve People
31. Be a Better Change Agent
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 31
Know and mitigate the
capital, customer,
process, culture and
people risks
He or she who helps people
embrace change rules the world
Adopt habits that
improve your
communication,
emotional and
thinking skills
Inspire people
32. Thank you
When you're finished changing, you're finished.
Benjamin Franklin
Feedback and dialog welcome at @augieray.
10/13/2016 @AUGIERAY 32
Hinweis der Redaktion
Hello, my name is Augie Ray, and I am a Research Director covering customer experience for marketing leaders at Gartner. For 20 years I have been an early adopter and advocate of things like the Web, social media, mobile technology and virtual reality, not only in my personal life but also professionally as well.
So, I’ve been there. I’ve been a change agent. But I’ve also been a guy who has run into professional roadblocks, who was told by leaders that my ideas were risky and who was sometimes ignored and marginalized by more serious, more cautious and more powerful leaders. I have been told I’m a square peg in a round hole—does that sound familiar to any of you? So, rather than a square or a circle, we’re going to focus on a triangle, or the Greek symbol of Delta, which is used in science and math to denote change.
Today, I want to share with you some research I have done personally to study how I, and you, can be a better change agent.
We all recognize the need to change, both in our personal lives and in our businesses. So why is it so damn hard?
This statistic has been widely repeated since 1993 when researchers quoted this as an “unscientific estimate.” Honestly, it has appeared in hundreds of articles in the past two decades, but is it true? I think the fact it has been so often quoted for so long suggests it matches what our gut tells us, but whether or not the failure rate is exactly this high, but what is the hard data?
http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/markhughes-060910.pdf
Here are some recent studies on change, and they demonstrate that while that 70% figure may not be accurate, the obstacles to change and the ramifications of failing are profound. When only half of business executives say change initiatives are adopted and sustained and 1 in 6 large IT change projects go so badly they threaten the existence of the company—that’s really telling us something…
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/delivering-large-scale-it-projects-on-time-on-budget-and-on-value
http://www.geneca.com/75-business-executives-anticipate-software-projects-fail/
https://www.towerswatson.com/en/Press/2013/08/Only-One-Quarter-of-Employers-Are-Sustaining-Gains-From-Change-Management
http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/reports/cultures-role-organizational-change
Change is hard. Change takes time. Change entails risk. Change puts people jobs at risks. So, if we want to embrace change, we must realize three realities of change…
First of all, there is no such thing as a change agent. That may sound odd considering I’m talking about being a better change agent, but being a change agent is a skill, not an ability. It is not something you are either born with or no but a something you can improve upon. All of us are change agents—none of us gets the luxury of waiting for others to change us. What this means is that we all need to sharpen our skills.
Second, no matter how much business leaders say they want change agents, being a change agent is risky. Change agents fail; they stumble in their career; they can damage their reputation. We all must appreciate that advocating for change entails risk, so we must be aware of the risks and mitigate them.
Finally, people hate change. We humans like to feel safe and comfortable, and change is risky and discomforting. Change is hard work, and no one likes to be forced to change. To succeed as a change agent, we must know how to inspire people or we will fail.
If we do these three things—sharpening our own skills, mitigating risks and inspiring people—we can succeed at leading change. Let’s explore each of these one at a time…
…starting with the skills and habits you need to be change agent. There are three broad categories of skills one needs to be successful at leading change. People skills, emotional skills and critical thinking skills.
The first three are people skills—the skills to build and maintain a network, communicate effectively and facilitate conflict.
The next three are emotional skills. Some people believe these are innate to personality, but all are skills you can build with practice—you can develop the skill to stay positive and resilient in the face of obstacles, the skill to be patient with people and processes and the skill to recognize your impact and be cognizant of your biases, strengths and weaknesses.
These first two sets of skills—people and emotional—are ones needed by any leaders, but these last three are crucial ones for change agents.
These are critical thinking skills—the skills to love constant learning, to challenge conventional wisdom and to constantly gather and analyze information to reach smart conclusions.
Me saying “go gain a new love of learning,” is not helpful, is it? Instead, I want to focus on how changes in habits encourage development of new skills. If you don’t change what you do, you cannot develop new skills. Simple as that.
We don’t have time to explore all nine, but I do want to concentrate on the habits that develop these last three critical thinking skills…
https://unsplash.com/search/skills?photo=xEy9QNUCdRI
You can’t lead change unless you are one of the first know change is necessary. You need to be hungry for information. Starving for it, in fact!
Schedule time—really schedule—put it on the calendar.
Adopt tools to find great info and save the valuable stuff. Evernote has a free browser plug-in that makes saving information as easy as clicking a button.
The last habit is one I highly recommend—it turns all that effort into staying informed into something beneficial to you beyond just becoming a better change agent. Once you start to engage with others and collect an audience, it becomes yet another reason to stay on the prowl for pertinent information. Let me ask you something—if I go to your LinkedIn profile like a hiring manager might and look at your recent activity, what will I see? No activity? Do you like a lot of Successories-style vapid memes and selfies of strangers who got a promotion? Or will I see someone hungry for news, eager to expand their knowledge and driven to inform and educate others? Get in the right habits to develop a love of learning, and you will reap benefits.
You can’t advocate for change if you think like everyone else. This means you have to—with apologies to Apple—think different.
Most people gravitate to comfort—to be a change agent, you must do the opposite.
When everyone has been doing something the same way for a while and there is consensus it works, that’s when change agents get uncomfortable.
Most people are obsessed with best practices within their industries—change agents seek info outside of it. What can we learn from Uber’s rapid rise? From Disney MagicBands? From Borders’ failure and Best Buy’s success?
When everyone says, “Yes, this is a new trend,” that’s when change agents ask why. Don’t merely zig when everyone zags—that’s just being disagreeable--but question everything and develop your own POV.
Passion is necessary to fuel the fires of change, but passion never wins the day by itself. What you see may be right, but being right is not enough. You must know why why it matters, how to act and what it will do for the company.
First things first—the attributes that make you a stronger change agent may also cloud your judgment and make it difficult for you to analyze and communicate objectively.
Here is where those networking skills come in handy—explore ideas with your network, listen to their objections, and seek help from mentors.
One thing change agents do wrong often is they brush past the risks, fearing any mention of risk will send leaders scurrying for safety. That is wrong—leaders understand risk and need to know you do too. What are the risks of changing, and how can they be mitigated? What are the risks of not changing?
Finally, identify and prepare for objections and make a dispassionate case. Be a contrarian to your own idea in order to make it bulletproof. When you can no longer disprove your idea, it is then and only then a logical case.
We just spoke a bit about risk in your ideas—the need to embrace risk, not hide from it, and consider ways to mitigate the risks of your change ideas. Now let’s talk about the risk to you. How do YOU mitigate the risk of being a change agent?
Ron Johnson has been a tremendous change agent in his career.
In his 15 years as Target’s VP of Merchandising, he introduced design partnerships that changes consumer perception of Target from a place to go for cheap product to the place to go for stylish and affordable products.
In his 12 years as Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail, he introduced the Apple Store concept at the same time brands like Gateway were shuttering their stores.
Ron Johnson had an incredible record of success for almost three decades before joining JCPenney, a retailer everyone recognizes is facing serious challenges. He lasted just 18 months as JCPenney’s CEO, being dismissed after his bold plan to revitalize the retailer ran into difficulties with both shoppers and shareholders.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jc-penney-worst-quarter-in-retail-history-2013-2
It is important to realize that Johnson was brought in as a change agent.
He had the support of the board.
He also had the support of the shareholders: Penney’s stock rose 17% on the news of Johnson’s hiring and rose another 24% in the three months after he started.
And yet, little more than a year after that, he was gone. Headlines used words like “Disaster” and “humbled.” What happened?
http://fortune.com/2016/05/16/ron-johnson-penney/
So, what went wrong? Hindsight is 20/20, but people point to many things.
In his desire for new, hipper shoppers, he alienated JCPenney’s existing bargain hunters. He replaced promotions, sales and clearance racks with the same pricing strategy that worked for iPhones. He stopped the brand’s 590 sales promotions per year with one per month. And he also replaced brands JCPenney shoppers came for with brands they could not afford.
He adopted Steve Jobs’ disdain for tests and refused to pilot his ideas.
He tried to rapidly change the culture of enormous, conservative JCP, with its 159,000 employees and 1,100 stores, into that of a startup.
He actively discouraged diversity of thought, punishing skeptics of his plans.
And he changed much of the senior leadership group, who understood the business, in favor of former associates from Target and Apple. One former Apple exec called the existing JCPenney leaders DOPES--dumb old Penney’s employees.
http://fortune.com/2014/03/20/how-to-fail-in-business-while-really-really-trying/
It is apparent Johnson felt he had the “capital” to weather any storms and do what he want. Capital is, in fact, one of the building blocks of change. Johnson came in with a lot of it and “spent” it all rapidly.
Johnson tried to replicate what worked for Apple without taking time to recognize what his customers wanted. In his desire to attract new customers, be abandoned JCPenney’s existing customers too quickly.
Johnson also emulated Steve Jobs, but the process that worked for a high-tech company with a small set of products aimed at a high-margin niche audience didn’t work well with a mass-market retailer with 1,100 stores. He didn’t test his ideas and he implemented changes more quickly than the system could accommodate.
Johnson knew he needed to change the culture, but culture changes slowly and you have to know and respect the existing culture.
Finally, he failed to value existing talent, treating people as if they were unwilling or unable to change. He mistook skepticism and candor for disagreement and disloyalty, alienating people and depriving himself of a diversity of perspectives.
None of us will find ourselves in the situation where a board of directors brings us in as CEO of a Fortune 500 company with a public mandate to change. We will never have as much capital as Ron Johnson. If he could fail with all of that capital, it should tell us something of the importance of understanding how we gain or lose necessary capital.
You need capital to initiate change, you need more for the period during which success is uncertain and you need still more to survive the small or large missteps that can occur.
Experience earns capital. Success earns capital. Working hard earns capitals. So does networking--find senior executives to mentor you and sponsor your initiatives.
Build a network, earn trust, help others, and leverage the network to improve your ideas.
At every step, seek and document approval and support. Don’t go too far out on the limb, for if it breaks, you’ll be left with no backing.
Own up to mistakes fast and solve them faster. Done right, you can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and earn capital for your candor, responsibility and action. Done wrong—waiting for someone else to point out problems or shirking responsibility—and you can drain you capital reserves quickly.
With all due respect to you and me, we are not Steve Jobs or Walt Disney. They could envision bold new consumer behaviors and needs, but chances are our organizations won’t act unless we connect the dots and make it relevant to the customer.
Gather data and information about customer needs, behaviors and perceptions to ground your plans.
Never forget your current customer as you pursue new ones, and make sure your idea to attract new customers fits the organization’s strategies. Nothing will kill your carefully planned idea faster than “That’s not our customer.” If you hear that, you’ve just dedicated a lot of time and spent a lot of capital developing an idea for the competition, not your own company.
Here’s something we should all recognize: Business leaders may be intrigued by ideas, but they invest in solutions and plans.
Also, realize that process frustrates change agents, which is why it is twice as important they respect the process. You are more likely to get approval and support for your idea if it has a plan that:
Describes not just what you’ll do but how you’ll do it. Recognize where your strengths are and seek out assistance from people who know how to build out a plan in the manner people within the organization expect.
Offers stages so that the idea can be tested frequently, risks limited, problems addressed and midcourse corrections implemented.
Change agents are quick to recognize the ways current corporate culture stands in the way of success, but culture changes slowly and working against current corporate culture only creates a headwind. You can mitigate risks by:
Aligning to current strategic initiatives—find ways to help the company achieves what it wants to rather than suggest it achieve something completely different.
Understand the corporate organization, recognize what different parts of the company want to achieve, and identify where you can expect quick support and where you will need to work harder to understand overcome objections.
Finally, change agents can be square pegs in round holes—at every chance, demonstrate you understand and reflect corporate mission and values, in other words, that you understand and respect the principles of the organization.
Because people are so important to the change process, we’re going to focus on them in our third and final portion of the presentation…
No one likes to be changed. No one wishes to be moved out of their comfort zone. No one enjoys being told their skills are becoming obsolete. People hate change, and it is the change agent’s job to inspire people to embrace it. Here’s how…
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
Ecommerce example—if you’re job is merchandising goods on store shelves, designing physical stores, picking locations or the logistics of delivering items to 1,100 stores, you are not going to get excited about ecommerce.
https://unsplash.com/search/money?photo=ZKVBM2_Dp84
People do what you pay them to do, not what you tell them to do. It is damn hard to get people change if you do not alter the goals and the ways employees are rewarded. Find the right behaviors, define the proper goals and metrics and consider ways to reward people for changing behaviors.
Wells Fargo example.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
https://unsplash.com/search/blossom?photo=HDhSLqszOMk
Nobody changes until the pain of changing is LESS than the pain of not. Change threatens people’s livelihoods—don’t expect people to sign on if they are uncertain what it means to their jobs. Don’t be the person telling people their future is terrible—be the person who shows them how they can have a better future. It can help to GENTLY raise fears and apprehension, but only if you make it about them.
Great change agents position change not just in terms of what it means to the customer or the bottom line but about the employees, as well. That means it is your job to…
Create a positive vision: I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
When you tell people about the risks of not changing, pair it with information on the benefits of changing.
Think through a support plan for employees—what training, what support, what information, what coaching will they need?
Plan for the time and resources necessary. And…
Involve people.
You teach me, I forget. You show me, I remember. You involve me, I understand.
https://unsplash.com/search/group?photo=9cx4-QowgLc
Listen to hopes, ideas and concerns. Tell people what must change and give them a voice in how it should be done.
Become familiar with Tuckman's stages of group development. It’s a simple but effective way to make sure you think through the stages and give groups time to change. It also stops you and others from panicking when you’re in the storming stage.
To be a better change agent:
Adopt habits that improve your communication, emotional and thinking skills. If you don’t change your habits, you cannot develop new skills.
Know and mitigate the capital, customer, process, culture and people risks. Be aware of how you add and subtract to your bank of capital.
And in a world of ever rapid change: He or she who helps people embrace change rules the world
When you're finished changing, you're finished, and I’m finished with my presentation.