Contents

Introduction:...............................................................................................................................................2
Why is company culture important?...........................................................................................................3
Why is the company culture difficult to change?........................................................................................4
Clear benefits..........................................................................................................................................6
An external force.....................................................................................................................................6
Leadership support..................................................................................................................................7
How to change the team culture.................................................................................................................7
Awareness: understand what needs changing........................................................................................7
Interviews............................................................................................................................................8
Surveys................................................................................................................................................8
Open door policy.................................................................................................................................8
Observations........................................................................................................................................9
Direction: decide what you want to change............................................................................................9
Execution: implement the change.........................................................................................................10
Align behaviors of the leaders...........................................................................................................10
Highlight the importance of the mission, vision and values..............................................................11
Celebrate desired behaviors..............................................................................................................11
Coach your team................................................................................................................................12
Hire, onboard, promote and fire people to reinforce the values.......................................................12
Review the company structure..........................................................................................................13
Validation: cultivate and measure the change......................................................................................13
Measure the success of all the changes.............................................................................................13
A cycle, not a line...................................................................................................................................14
WHAT IS CHANGE MANAGEMENT?...........................................................................................................15
Definition:..............................................................................................................................................15
Change Management:...........................................................................................................................16
As a Systematic Process.....................................................................................................................16
As a Means of Transitioning People...................................................................................................16
As a Competitive Tactic......................................................................................................................16
Change starts with a Vision...................................................................................................................16
Definition:..........................................................................................................................................16
 Characteristics of an Effective Vision:................................................................................................16
What about a Strategy?.........................................................................................................................16
Common obstacles to change:..................................................................................................................17
Leader’s role in Change Management:..................................................................................................17
Why do change efforts fail?.......................................................................................................................17
Eight Errors Common to Organizational Change Efforts and Their Consequences:...............................18
Consequences........................................................................................................................................18
Roles and responsibilities for change:.......................................................................................................18
The Sponsor...........................................................................................................................................18
The Champion.......................................................................................................................................18
The Change Agent.................................................................................................................................18
Stakeholders..........................................................................................................................................19
Change Management Model:....................................................................................................................19
Step one: Increase Urgency...................................................................................................................19
Step two: Build the Guiding Team.........................................................................................................20
Step three: Get the Vision Right............................................................................................................20
Step four: Communicate for Buy-In.......................................................................................................21
Step five: Empower Action....................................................................................................................21
Step six: Create Short –Term Wins........................................................................................................22
Step seven: Don’t Let Up.......................................................................................................................22
Managing emotions in change:.................................................................................................................23
Phase 1: Ending, Losing, Letting Go.......................................................................................................24
Phase 2: The Neutral Zone.....................................................................................................................24
Phase 3: The New Beginning.................................................................................................................25
Additional Tips to Addressing Resistance..............................................................................................25
Introduction:
There is an annual tradition that so many of us religiously follow. It happens around the
end of December, somewhere in-between Christmas trees, turkey and family
gatherings. You take a piece of paper and reflect on the past year.

What went well?

What could’ve been better?

Suddenly an epiphany hits you. You’re not satisfied with the direction your life is taking.
It needs to change. You create a clear plan for reinventing yourself, buy that gym
membership and promise to spend more time on your long-term goals. New Year, new
you.

Fast-forward a month and probably you are back to your old habits.

Sustaining change is extremely hard. It’s so hard that we choose to risk premature
death rather than change our habits.

For example, the long-term success of heart surgeries depends on making healthier
lifestyle choices. However, according to a John Hopkins Hospital research, two years
after the surgery 90% of people who had it went back to the same lifestyle they had
before.

If changing your own behavior is that hard, imagine changing a collective behavior of
multiple individuals. Imagine changing company culture.

Why is company culture important?

Even though it can be hard to tangibly define company culture, it’s not much different
from other better-understood concepts, for example, human personality.

Your personality is determined by specific traits that describe you as a person. Things
like openness to new experiences, or how organized and conscientious you are, or
whether you are more of an extrovert or an introvert. Those traits are manifested in your
daily behaviors and decisions. If self-actualization is something of value to you, you’ll
carve up some time for regular mediation. If you get energized from interactions with
lots of people, you’ll find opportunities to socialize more. If you have an agreeable
personality, you’ll find it easy to feel compassion and trust towards people around.

Company culture is company’s personality. It’s an unconscious set of assumptions,

attitudes and principles which define that particular company and are manifested in daily
decisions and behaviors by people there.

Just as how fundamental your personality is for your successes and failures, company
culture has a crucial impact on company’s performance. A strong company culture,
according to research, is positively correlated with better performance, productivity and
profits.

Despite understanding the importance of company culture, most companies don’t have
the culture that works well for them. For example, based on a survey by Deloitte, while
87% of people view culture as something important, only 19% of them believe they have
the right one. Moreover, another study showed a whopping 96% of respondents saying
their company culture needs to change.

Company culture is a fundamental fabric of organization’s existence that directly

impacts business results. Getting it right is one of the most fundamental things you can
do.

Why is the company culture difficult to change?

Imagine you decide to teach penguins to fly.

You continuously train them, make them flap their wings as fast as they can, push them
off the edge. Yet all your hopes are in vain.
Their bodies, formed by millions of years of evolution in a particular environment, are
incapable of flying.

For those penguins to learn to fly again, you’ll have to put them into a different
environment, that’d require them to adapt over hundreds of generations. And maybe,
one day, they’ll fly again.
Just like the penguin’s biology, company culture forms at the company’s inception, the
moment co-founders start working together. It frequently mirrors their personality,
comfort zone and work style. Moreover, since people tend to hire those who are similar
to themselves, the culture is further reinforced by new hires, as well as the behavior of
the longest-serving teammates.

Company culture thus is a product of multi-year organic evolution, which for many
people in leadership is also tied to their core personal values. All of that makes
changing it extremely difficult.

W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, in their book “Blue Ocean Strategy,” talk about
four challenges of changing a culture.

First, there are cognitive challenges – the fact that people need to clearly understand
why the change is needed in the first place.

Second, resource challenges – changing the company culture will require a shift in
people’s attention, capacity for which may not be there.

Third, motivation challenges – ensuring that people actually want to make a change.

Finally, political challenges – ensuring that systems are designed to support the change.
Because of all those challenges, usually, to even consider company culture change,
three things are crucial.

Clear benefits
the culture should not be outright bad or toxic to justify changing it. Sometimes it may
simply not serve well in helping the team reach its goals anymore.

Regardless of the reasons, when there is so much friction to instill a change, the
benefits of doing it must be glaring.

An external force
Since the company culture usually reflects the personalities and values of the existing
team, it may take a challenge from the outside to initiate the change.

It can be new leadership, for example hiring an outsider CEO. It can be a crisis that the
company went through, for example a public scandal. Or it can be a paradigm shift in
the outside world, like a competitor entering the market with a fundamentally better
proposition.

It can be hard to realize you have a problem when the cause for the problem is so
entrenched in your team’s established ways of working.

Leadership support
Even the most logical improvement won’t rally everyone around it. So it’s critical to have
people with a disproportionate amount of influence onboard.

If you are not a leader and leadership is not keen to change, it will be close to
impossible to make a sustainable change. If you are unhappy with the culture and have
no leadership support, it may be best for you to find a new job, instead of spending your
time in an uphill battle with unclear results.

If you are a leader though (or can convince leadership) and you have a clear
understanding why the change is required now and which benefits it’d bring, there is a
fair chance of making an impact.

How to change the team culture

Tolstoy’s famous book “Anna Karenina” opens with a sentence “Happy families are all
alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Something similar can be said about companies too. Since every underperforming
company has its unique problems, I was expecting a path to cultural transformation to
be unique as well.

However, somewhere in the middle of my research, it became clear that almost every
company that went through a successful company culture change followed the same
four-stage framework:
As long as you do your best on each stage, it’s a process that will lead any team to
positive outcomes.

So what do those stages mean? Let’s dive in together.

Awareness: understand what needs changing

Remember that famous Albert Einstein quote: “I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and then 5 minutes solving it”? Most probably he actually never said it, but it
still conveys a very fundamental principle: you can’t solve the problem unless you
understand it. That’s the reality of any design work, including organizational design.

Back in the early 2000s Aetna, an insurance giant, was going through turmoil. The
company was losing roughly $1 million a day, their customer satisfaction was at the
historic low and they experienced executive attrition (going through four consecutive
CEOs in just five years).

After John W. Rowe became a new leader, instead of following in the steps of his
predecessors who came armed with a clear plan for action that never worked, he
started by talking to the team to understand the problems. As a result of those
conversations, he was able to learn both the problems and strengths of the existing
organizational culture. Armed with that knowledge Aetna was able to evolve.

Over the course of the next five years, those changes led to outstanding results. The
company went from a $300 million loss in operating income to a $1.7 billion gain,
increased the stock price from $5.84 to $48.40 a share and the majority of teammates
started feeling reinvigorated, enthusiastic, and genuinely proud of working there.

Focusing on understanding allows you to uncover diverse perspectives and thus

correctly identify the right problem to solve.

There are multiple ways you can do that.

Interviews
In-person interviews are one of the best instruments for a deep understanding of almost
any issue. By setting up 1:1 or group chats with your teammates from different
departments, actively listening to their feedback and looking out for patterns in their
responses, you’ll be able to get clarity about their frustrations and the causes of those
frustrations.

It can be hard sometimes to put company culture into words. So try asking specific
indirect questions. Things like “What are the things we value here?”, or “What types of
people fail in our company?”, or “How would you describe the team’s personality?”

Surveys
Even though interviews allow you to dig deeper, they are hard to scale. And since
culture is impacting the whole company, you want to be as inclusive on the awareness
stage as possible. So it might be a good idea to consider using surveys for that.

It’s easy to follow default instincts and put as many questions into those surveys as you
can. However, the pain of filling and analyzing those hundred-question surveys would
dilute their value. Instead, if you keep your surveys simple (say, one to five questions
max), you’ll get a high level of participation even in the most culturally disengaged
teams.

Regardless of the survey structure, your insights would be as good as your questions
are. So similar to interviews, try asking specific indirect questions. For example, in our
product, we encourage people to ask, among many others, questions like “Which
company values are we usually not acting according to?”, or “What do you like about
our culture?”, or “Which tips would you tell a friend joining your team?”

Open door policy

Another technique to help you gather feedback is ensuring anyone can come and talk to
you.

When Captain D. Michael Abrashoff took command of the USS Benfold in 1997, it was
one of the worst performing ships in the US Navy. The team was disengaged, lacking
trust and full of conflict.

Realizing he can’t fix things unless he understands the problem first, the new captain
showed the team he welcomes their feedback. He established an open door policy. He
asked every sailor about one thing he didn’t know. He solicited thoughts and ideas and
announced them over the loudspeaker. In just a year’s time, the morale of the crew
completely changed and USS Benfold became the highest performing ship in the US
Navy.

You don’t need an office to have an open door policy. You just need to show that you
are actively seeking feedback, whether by being open to it or by proactively asking for it.
Unlocking honest feedback from your team is the fastest way to get to awareness and
clarity on your current culture.

Observations
If the level of trust in the company is low, many problems, despite your best efforts, may
not come out verbally. People either won’t feel comfortable to talk frankly, or they won’t
believe anything would change even if they are honest.

Thus it may be important to also rely on observations of non-verbal clues, for example,
paying attention to how people behave and interact with each other. Do they seem
friendly and smile or do they feel morose or withdrawn? Do they omit to mention
something you think is essential (like customer impact of a decision)? Do they
personalize their workstations?
As you go through the above techniques and acquire an understanding of the intricacies
of the existing culture, you can start analyzing how to change it. Which brings us to the
second stage – deciding what the right direction to go is.

Direction: decide what you want to change

There is a prevailing lonely hero myth in our collective consciousness. It’s in our books,
movies, news articles, the stories we tell. We are used to searching for a charismatic
leader, who creates a change solely with the strength of their iron will.

Much more often though a sustainable change is the result of a creation of a movement,
rather than an effort of a single person. And those movements are fueled by the shared
vision of the future.

Creating a shared vision, which will bring a sense of exhilaration and excitement and
help your team better achieve its goals, is the main purpose of the second stage. It’s
time to analyze the frustrations, hopes and desires you gathered previously, get ideas
for improvements from the team and iterate on those ideas. Usually, it results in two
things.

First, creating or updating the core of your company’s belief system – the mission,
vision and values. Although principles for creating an effective core belief system
deserve a future deep dive of their own, a rule of thumb here is making them actionable,
specific, inspiring and rooted in the strength of existing company culture.

Second, identifying key behaviors, you’d want to change. Those are specific shifts (big
or small) in the way people act that are easy to emulate.

An example of a small change like that was highlighted in the HBR research where a
company found out that a significant source of the team’s frustration was their 360-
degree evaluation system. Notably, the results of reviews were often surprising to
people. In response, leadership introduced a simple behavioral change – they started
asking people if they have ever given feedback to a teammate they were reviewing.
That tiny change showed that the company valued regular feedback and led to an
increase in the constructive criticism that people shared with each other continuously.

With clarity around where you’re going, it’s finally time for the changes you planned to
meet the reality. That’s where it gets really hard.

Execution: implement the change

You probably heard a phrase that a great plan means nothing without execution. It’s
more than accurate in this case.

If I am to illustrate the chart of culture change initiatives, that’s the stage where 90% of
them fails.

Those who succeed usually follow these steps.

Align behaviors of the leaders

Regardless of how much we may prefer not to be hierarchical, psychologically we are.
We naturally look up to people who lead us (whether they are situational or formal
leaders).

When initiating a cultural transformation, one of the first things most people will start
paying attention to is how aligned behaviors of executives and managers are with new
principles. So leaders need to lead the change by changing their own behaviors first.

It can’t be just verbal support – they need to be the first to embrace the new company
culture. And if, for some reason, a leader makes a decision that contradicts the new
behaviors, they need to own up to that and approach it transparently and proactively.
It’s naive to expect everyone on the team behave in the desired way while making
exceptions for the leaders.

When Dr. Reddy’s, a global pharmaceutical giant, tried to change its culture to be more
nimble, innovative and patient-centered, they started using new values to guide
decisions of the leadership team, even before they shared those values with a broader
organization.

Usually, that’s how social movements start – they galvanize the small group of early
supporters who achieve first small wins using the new approach, which in turn leads to
more people realizing its value and joining in. For Dr. Reddy’s that worked particularly
well. In some cases, it led to decrease in time from project start to completion from
multiple months to a fortnight.

Highlight the importance of the mission, vision and values

The newly minted mission, vision and values need to internalize with people.

Talk about them in meetings. Put posters on the walls. Print out employee handbooks.
Use them to make decisions. Focus the feedback you give to each other around them.

For example, when Ritz-Carlton was struggling with a performance of the stuff at its
hotel, they introduced a culture section during the daily lineup – for a few minutes they
discussed one of the values or standards, with the meeting led by a different employee
every time. Over an extended time that created a lot of reinforcement of those ideas,
without getting too repetitive.
Highlighting the company’s mission, vision and values creates a deep empathy for
those principles so that after a while they’re subconsciously applied in the decision-
making process.

Celebrate desired behaviors

Talking about values and behaviors doesn’t mean much unless corresponding actions
reinforce them. Connecting the desired behaviors to your recognition process can be a
good way to start.

When GM was emerging from bankruptcy back in 2010, they wanted to promote risk-
taking and the open exchange of ideas. To reinforce them one team started giving each
other “gold star” stickers to praise people who exhibited those values. An initiative
quickly spread across many other teams helping the company to change its culture.

Alternatively or on top of that, you can also introduce a regular all-hands meeting (or
make it a section in your existing one) to share praise for teammates who exhibited
those behaviors. You can create special recognition awards (they don’t have to be
monetary). You can run regular surveys to ask about people who made decisions based
on the values. Or you can start using dedicated tools that allow to connect feedback to
specific values or behaviors.

The goal behind celebrating those behaviors is to show people actual examples of
values being applied well in the real world. That’s the level of reinforcement no poster
can do.

Coach your team

Another way to internalize the changes is through 1-on-1 or group coaching. Coaching
can help your team to analyze their work according to new behaviors and values and
understand how to apply them.

Andy Grove, Intel’s founder, in his book High output management, pointed out that
coaching is the highest impact activity a manager can do. For example, if after spending
12 hours training 10 teammates their productivity would improve by 1%, a manager
would effectively increase total output by 200 hours (given that each teammate works
2000 hours a year).

It’s especially true when going through the cultural change. Coaching can help people
be more aware of the changes and help them learn how to apply new practices in their
work.

Hire, onboard, promote and fire people to reinforce the values

Cultural change ripples through all of the company processes, but your core people
decisions should reflect it the most.

First, it means you need to look for desired values and behaviors in people who go
through your hiring pipeline and take that into account when making decisions.
Second, when people do join you need to invest in their onboarding and coaching to
align them closer to your culture.

Third, your team needs to understand that exhibiting the new behaviors and values is
essential not just for the organizational success, but also for their own growth and
development. Which means that the new company culture should be woven into the
performance management process. And thus people who are promoted should be an
embodiment of those values at best and not obstructers at least.

Fourth, when it comes to people who don’t align with the new culture and don’t want to
change, the best thing both for the company and themselves might be to part ways. It
doesn’t mean you don’t give warnings or don’t help them transform and embrace the
new organizational culture. Yet unless firm actions are taken against those who
repeatedly obstruct the culture, those teammates will eventually undermine the change.

For example, Jeff Bezos, in an attempt to change Amazon’s culture gave a clear
mandate to fire those who don’t embrace it.

People processes are core in determining who joins the company, how they get on
boarded and how their performance is evaluated. There is no better way to highlight the
importance of changes than by making new values and behaviors an integral part of all
of that.

Review the company structure

Sometimes to change things for the better a bigger change is needed. For example,
changing the whole structure of the company.

When Robert McNamara became a President of the World Bank in 1968, as part of the
cultural change he initiated a reorganization to support the new culture and
management systems (which transformed the institution from a small financial boutique
to a global corporation).

An existing structure may bluntly not work, for example when several teams are
competing over the ownership of a particular area of the product, leading to conflicts,
diffusion of responsibility and a very hostile company culture.

Or problems may exist just on the level of particular teams, for example when there is a
large number of them is underperforming.

In either case, it’s good to consider switching up those teams (especially the
underperforming ones) to break people out of their sub-optimally working routines and
habits.

Finally, as you do the things above and keep consistently executing to make a new
culture a habit, it’s time to reflect and validate whether or not your changes need
changing.
Validation: cultivate and measure the change
When changing company culture, following all the previous stages is not a guarantee
you got it right. Usually, you need to put clear metrics to understand how successful
new culture is, find the patience to give the change you instilled time and iterate if there
are things you missed or got wrong.

Measure the success of all the changes

Have you ever actively tried to lose or gain weight? How did you go about it? Many
dietary experts agree that keeping a close eye on your calorie intake, types of food you
consume and training you do as well as regularly measuring your actual weight usually
are a pre-requisite for a sustainable change. It’s hard to progress unless you establish a
feedback loop about the change process.

Unlike the weight, company culture is seen by many as something intangible, something
that’s hard to put a fixed metric on. That shouldn’t be the case.

First, cultural change will almost certainly have an impact on overall business KPIs –
like revenue or customer growth.

Second, many cultural changes can be connected to specific numbers. For example, if
the goal of the transformation is to make the company more customer-centric, you can
quantify it by measuring the customer success score for support and sales
conversations.

Third, you can rely on internal indicators, for example, feedback from the team
(gathered in person or via regular surveys) or the amount of praise teammates give
each other about exhibiting new values and behaviors.

Rigorous measurement is crucial for a sustainable change. It will not only demonstrate
evidence of improvements to maintain the positive momentum, but it will also help
understand whether the changes are being adopted, whether they make a difference,
whether there is backsliding or whether there are things that need to be improved.

Sustain
We’ve already mentioned how bad we are at sticking to changes, so it’s important to
have correct expectations going into cultural transformation. The hardest part about
change is sustaining it.

Your metrics probably won’t drastically improve right away. Not everyone on your team
will gladly adopt the changes. Yet as long as you rally everyone around the new
behaviors, gradually you’ll start seeing improvements.

Despite how crucial sustaining change is, it’s important not to be blindsided by it. Listen
to the feedback from the team, and if the change continuously raises concerns, it should
be iterated on.
At the end of the day, you didn’t start a process of cultural change to end up with a
different culture that still doesn’t work.

A cycle, not a line

If you look at those four stages at a higher level, you realize they can be applied to more
than changing company culture. It’s a recipe for any change.

First, on the stage of awareness, you understand the problem. Second, on the stage of
direction, you gain clarity about where you want to go. Then, on the stage of execution,
you implement those changes. Finally, on the stage of validation, you ensure that the
change makes sense and is taking hold.

And that’s when it becomes clear that this four-stage framework is not a line.

It’s a cycle.

There is no hard stop. Most probably, on the stage of validation, you will realize you
were wrong somewhere. Perhaps some of the new behaviors are impossible to uphold.
Perhaps those behaviors didn’t lead to the desired results. Perhaps after a while, things
have fundamentally changed and now you need a new set of principles. Regardless of
the reason, at some point, you’ll need to go back to the first stage to understand new
problems and search for new solutions.

Change is hard. It requires effort. So despite problems, it can be tempting to maintain

the status quo. Yet avoiding the pain of changing by ignoring problems is not a way to
solve them. Those problems won’t go away. Your people, your company and you
deserve better.

WHAT IS CHANGE MANAGEMENT?

Definition:
Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and
organizations from a current state to a desired future state, to fulfill or implement a vision and
strategy. It is an organizational process aimed at empowering employees to accept and
embrace changes in their current environment. There are several different streams of thought
that have shaped the practice of change management.
Change Management:
As a Systematic Process
Change management is the formal process for organizational change, including a systematic
approach and application of knowledge. Change management means defining and adopting
corporate strategies, structures, procedures, and technologies to deal with change stemming
from internal and external conditions.
-Society for Human Resources Management, 2007 Change Management Survey Report 5
As a Means of Transitioning People
Change management is a critical part of any project that leads, manages, and enables people to
accept new processes, technologies, systems, structures, and values. It is the set of activities
that helps people transition from their present way of working to the desired way of working.
-Lambeth Change Management Team, Change Management Toolkit.
As a Competitive Tactic
Change management is the continuous process of aligning an organization with its marketplace
—and doing so more responsively and effectively than competitors.
-Lisa M. Kudray and Brian H. Kleiner, “Global Trends in Managing Change,” Industrial Management, May
1997

Change starts with a Vision

A change effort or initiative must start with a vision. Whether change is prompted by external
(political, economic, social or technological) or internal factors (policy, systems or structure),
creating a vision will clarify the direction for the change. In addition, the vision will assist in
motivating those that are impacted to take action in the right direction
Definition:
A vision statement tells you where you are going. It paints a compelling work of a desired future
state. It can make anyone who reads it, hears it or lives it want to support, work for, give to, or in
some other way be part of your organization.
-Christina Drouin, White paper on Visioning for the Centre for Strategic Planning

Characteristics of an Effective Vision:

 Imaginable – conveys a picture of what the future will look like
 Desirable – appeals to the long-term interests of employees, customers, stakeholders etc.
 Feasible – comprises realistic, obtainable goals
 Focused – clear enough to provide guidance in decision making
 Flexible – General enough to allow initiative and alternative responses
 Communicable – can be fully explained in 5 minutes

What about a Strategy?

A strategy will ensure that the vision is achieved. It is a unified, comprehensive and integrated plan that
provides a “roadmap” for achieving the vision. Without a strategic plan and vision, the change effort will
not be successful.

Common obstacles to change:

A 2006 study by Harvard Business Review found that 66% of change initiatives fail to achieve their
desired business outcomes. Why is change so difficult? The five most common obstacles to change are
depicted in the graph below. Note that the three circled obstacles, are those that you, as a leader, can
influence and improve.

Leader’s role in Change Management:

Given the obstacles noted, leaders have a critical role to play in managing change, the following chart
provides an overview of how your role can impact the change obstacle.

Change Obstacles Leader’s Role

Employee Resistance
 Leverage your relationship with your team
to address employee concerns on a personal
level.
 Ask for their feedback and respond to their
concerns honestly and openly.
 Review the section on Managing Change
in this guide.

Communication breakdown
 Communicate key information to
employees on an on-going and consistent
basis.
 Review the section on Communication in
 this guide.

Staff turnover
 Engage your team by involving them in the
initiative.
 Coach, Mentor and enrich their roles.

Why do change efforts fail?

There can be a significantly negative impact on the department or Faculty when a change initiative fails,
or its implementation is unplanned. According to John P. Kotter (author of Leading Change),
organizations often commit the following common errors that will hinder their change efforts and they
are noted below.

Eight Errors Common to Organizational Change Efforts and Their Consequences:

Error #1: Allowing too much complacency
Error #2: Failing to garner leadership support
Error #3: Underestimating the power of vision
Error #4: Under communicating the vision
Error #5: Permitting obstacles to block the new vision
Error #6: Failing to create short-term wins
Error #7: Declaring victory too soon
Error #8: Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the culture
Consequences
Quality programs don’t deliver hoped-for results
New strategies aren’t implemented well
Reengineering takes too long

Roles and responsibilities for change:

Understanding the roles and responsibilities that you and others play in the change effort is
essential. They will provide clarity on the expectations, project scope and responsibility for each
contributor. Typically, there are four key roles: the Sponsor (Senior Leaders), Champion
(Leader), Change Agent (Human Resources) and Stakeholder (Employees).

The Sponsor
Is usually the Director/Dean in the department/faculty and:
- Has the overall responsibility for the department or faculty.
- Is the person who has authority over the project and over the individuals who will
implement the change.
- Provides funding, resolves issues and scope changes.
- Approves major deliverables and provides high-level direction.
- Has a clear vision, identified goals and measurable outcomes for the change initiative.

The Champion
Is usually the Sr. Manager/Chair in the department/faculty that:
- Has the overall day-to-day authority.
 - Provides the Sponsor with information about the issues and challenges.
- Engages and involves the right people on the ground.
- Brings the change vision to life.
- Encourages (and sometimes enforces) new and desired behaviors.

The Change Agent

Is the person or group that assists the department/faculty to implement the proposed change
i.e., Human Resources. Their role is to advise and guide the Champion and Sponsor throughout
the change initiative and:
- Focus on assisting, advising and coaching the Sponsor and Champion in the change
effort.
- May act in a number of roles – data gatherer, educator, advisor, facilitator or coach.
- Has no direct-line authority to or over the Sponsor or Stakeholders.
- Act as subject-matter-experts in the change management process.

Stakeholders
Are those employees who will be impacted by the change. It is critical that they are involved in the
process and understand how the change initiative will impact their current state.

Change Management Model:

Many change models have been developed over time to provide structure in approach. In John P.
Kotter’s book, “Leading Change” he outlines eight critical steps when transforming an organization. Its
principles are at the core of any successful change effort. Ryerson’s OEE department and your HRMC will
partner with you and your team through each stage of the change effort.

Step one: Increase Urgency

Raising a feeling of urgency is the first and most critical step in a successful change effort. With low
urgency and complacency, the change effort cannot get off the ground.

What works What does not work Common Pitfalls

Creating a compelling Focusing exclusively on  Underestimating the

story.
Never underestimating
how much complacency,
fear, and anger exists.
Creating the vision.
building a “rational” business difficulty of driving people
case, getting top from their comfort zones.
management approval, and  Becoming paralyzed by
racing ahead while mostly risks.
ignoring all the feelings that
are blocking change.
Ignoring a lack of
urgency and jumping
immediately to creating a
vision and strategy.
Thinking that you can do
little if you’re not the leader.

Tip: “Begin with the end in mind” - Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Desired New Behavior: People start telling each other, "Let's go, we need to change
things!"

Step two: Build the Guiding Team

It is important to get the right people in place who are fully committed to the change initiative, well-
respected within the organization, and have power and influence to drive the change effort at their
levels.

What works What does not work Common Pitfalls

Showing enthusiasm Guiding change with  No prior experience in

and commitment to help
draw the right people into the
group.
Modeling the trust and
teamwork needed in the
group
weak task forces, single teamwork at the top.
individuals, complex  Delegating team
governance structures, or leadership to HR rather than
fragmented top teams. a senior line manager.
Not confronting the
situation when power
centers undermine the
selection of the right team.
Trying to leave out or
work around the head of the
unit to be changed.

Tip: Draft a large, diverse team made up of individuals at all levels and with different skills.
Desired New Behavior: A group powerful enough to guide a big change is formed and they
start to work together well.

Step three: Get the Vision Right

While creating a shared need and urgency for change may push people into action, it is the vision that
will steer them into the new direction.

What works What does not work Common Pitfalls

Trying to see – literally – Assuming that linear or  Presenting a vision that’s

possible futures.
Visions that are so clear
that they can be articulated
in five minutes or written up
on one page.
Visions that are moving
– such as a commitment to
serving people.
logical plans and budgets too complicated or vague to
alone adequately guide be communicated in five
behavior when you are trying minutes.
to leap into the future.
Overly analytical,
financially based vision
exercises.

Tip: Position the change around a compelling picture of the desired future state i.e.,
Ryerson’s Master Plan.
Desired New Behavior: The guiding team develops the right vision and strategy for the
change effort.

Step four: Communicate for Buy-In

Once a vision and strategy have been developed, they must be communicated to the organization in
order to gain understanding and buy-in. Sending clear, credible, and heartfelt messages about the
direction of change establishes genuine gut-level buy-in, which sets the stage for the following step:
getting people to act.

What works What does not work Common Pitfalls

Developing a Under communicating,  Behaving in ways contrary

communications strategy.
Keeping communication
simple and heartfelt.
Speaking to anxieties,
confusion, anger, and
distrust.
which can easily happen. to the vision.
Accidentally fostering
cynicism by not “walking the
talk”.

Tip: Create tools that help people tailor information to their specific needs – rather than
forcing more generic memos and reports into over-stuffed email and in-boxes
Desired New Behavior: People begin to buy into the change, and this shows in their
behavior

Step five: Empower Action

Empowering action should be seen as removing barriers to those whom we want to assist in pushing the
change effort. Removing obstacles should inspire, promote optimism and build confidence around the
change effort.

What works What does not work Common Pitfalls

Finding individuals with Trying to remove all the  Failing to address

change experience who can
bolster people’s self-
confidence with “we-won-
you-can-too” anecdotes.
Recognition and reward
barriers at once. powerful individuals who
Giving in to your own resist the change effort.
pessimisms and fears.
systems that inspire,
promote optimism, and build
self-confidence.
Feedback that can help
people make better
decisions.

Tip: Recognize and reward excellence.

Desired New Behavior: More people feel able to act, and do act, on the vision.

Step six: Create Short –Term Wins

Short-term wins nourish faith in the change effort, emotionally reward the hard workers, keep the critics
at bay, and build momentum. By creating short-term wins, and being honest with feedback, progress is
achieved and people are inspired.

What works What does not work Common Pitfalls

Early wins that come Launching many  Leaving short-term

fast.
Wins that are as visible
as possible to as many
people as possible.
Wins that are
meaningful to others.
projects all at once. successes up to chance.
Providing the first win  Failing to score successes
too slowly. early enough into the
change effort.

Tip: Focus on one or two goals instead of all and make sure no new initiatives are added
until one of those goals is achieved and celebrated.
Desired New Behavior: Momentum builds as people try to fulfill the vision, while fewer
and fewer resist change.

Step seven: Don’t Let Up

In successful efforts, people build on this momentum to make the vision a reality by keeping urgency up,
eliminating unnecessary, exhausting work and not declaring victory prematurely .

What works What does not work Common Pitfalls

Aggressively ridding Convincing yourself that  Declaring victory too soon

yourself of work that wears you’re done when you – with the first performance
you down-tasks that were aren’t. improvement.
relevant in the past but not
now, tasks that can be
delegated.
Looking constantly for
ways to keep urgency up.
Using new situations
opportunistically to launch
the next wave of change.
Tip: Replace a time-consuming and painstakingly detailed monthly activity report with a
one-page summary that highlights only major milestones and key information.
Desired New Behavior: People remain energized and motivated to push change forward
until the vision is fulfilled

Step eight: Make Change Stick

By creating a new, supportive, and sufficiently strong organizational culture, the change should remain.
A supportive culture provides roots for the new ways of operating.

What works What does not work Common Pitfalls

Telling vivid stories Trying to change culture  Not creating new social
about the new organization, as the first step in the norms and shared values
what it does, and why it transformation process consistent with changes
succeeds
Making absolutely sure
you have the continuity of
behavior and results that
help a new culture grow

Tip: When introducing new hires to the organization, use videos that contain heartfelt
messages from clients whose lives the department has impacted.
Desired New Behavior: New and winning behavior continues despite the pull of tradition,
turnover of change leaders, etc.

Managing emotions in change:

Resistance to change is the largest obstacle that leaders are faced with when initiating a
change effort. It can be very damaging to the process and can potentially stall the efforts to
move forward if not addressed appropriately. There are many reasons why an employee may
resist change and so as “leaders of change”, you will need to be sensitive to how individuals
respond while keeping in mind that the process of commitment and acceptance takes time.
William Bridges developed a model that reviews the emotional impact of change over time and the
leader’s role. He describes the difference between change and transition. Change is situational and will
happen without the people, whereas transition deals with the psychological impact on the people.

As a leader of change your role will be to support and encourage your staff throughout each phase. It is
important to recognize that transition is not linear and therefore, those that are impacted sometimes
find themselves moving back and forth between the phases. Given this possibility, you will need to
expect and anticipate that people will go through the transition process at different speeds and in
different ways. Your skills in communication, listening and coaching will be pivotal in identifying how to
support your staff, both as individuals and as a group, so they can move through the phases as quickly
and effectively as possible.

Phase 1: Ending, Losing, Letting Go

In this phase, staff and faculty must come to a point where they can let go of the old situation and until
they let go, they will not be able to move on.

Possible Reactions: Tips for Leaders

 Sense of shock 1. Identify what each individual will be losing

 Fear 2. Accept your employees’ reactions
 Resentment 3. Be open about losses and show empathy
 Apathy to those affected
 Loss 4. Look for ways to compensate your
employees for their losses
5. Provide your employees with lots of
information
6. Show care and concern
7. Ask for reactions
8. Listen and pay attention to what you are
hearing
9. Allow people time to grieve
10. Respond to the questions

Behaviors to watch for:

 Asking questions
 Challenging
 Complaining
 Failing to see any positive outcomes
 Trouble sleeping
 Withdrawal
 Blame

What they are saying:

“Why can’t things stay the same?” “This will never work”
Phase 2: The Neutral Zone
In this phase, staff and faculty are in the gap between the old and new where the “old” no longer
works and the “new” has yet to be established.
Possible Reactions: Tips for Leaders

 Anxiety 1. Talk to your staff and faculty about the

 Confusion feelings they can expect at this stage
 Decreased motivation (which can result in 2. Create temporary policies, procedures or
lack of productivity) structures as necessary
 Some hope 3. Strengthen connections within your team
4. Encourage your employees to think of new
ways of doing things
5. Involve people in trying out ideas
 6. Start training people on the new skills they
will need
7. Continue to explain the purpose and plan

Behaviors to watch for:

 Adjustment
 Bargaining
 Willingness to get involved

What they are saying:

“Things are a mess, we are so unorganized” “Here we go again!”

Phase 3: The New Beginning

In this phase staff and faculty begin to show emotional commitment to the new state.
Possible Reactions: Tips for Leaders

 New energy 1. Explain the purpose for the new beginning

 New identity 2. Continue to communicate the vision: what
 Sense of purpose. will the outcome of the change look like
3. Develop a transition plan: when they will
receive information, training and support
4. Give your employees parts to play in the
transition

Behaviors to watch for:

 Rebuilding
 Cooperation
 Clear focus and planning

What they are saying:

“What can we do to make this work?”
“When you get used to it…it’s not bad”

Additional Tips to Addressing Resistance

As a leader, you will likely need to deal with the negative effects of change. The following table
provides reasons why staff and faculty may resist change and strategies that leaders of change
can use to reduce that resistance.
Reasons Employees Resist Strategies

 Employees feel they will suffer from the  Use communication strategy that solicits
change employee input

 Organization does not communicate  Do not send mixed signals regarding the
expectations clearly change; this will increase employee distrust
 Employees perceive more work with  Communicate clear vision of the change
fewer opportunities  Provide timely education

 Change requires altering a long-standing  Identify employee concerns and

habit unresolved implementation issues

 Relationships harbor unresolved  Provide employees with a timeline and a

resentments defined approach and outcome

 Employees lack feeling of job security  Communicate how employees will benefit
 Change alters existing social interactions from the change

 Organization lacks adequate reward  Develop procedures to address

process employees who will be negatively affected
 Organization lacks sufficient resources by the change