Making Change Last !
Tips on making real change happen.
- Jay Watson
Employ Improvement Initiatives
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Laying the Foundations
for Accelerating Change
Management Overview
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When is Change Most likely to
be Successful?
• When a company is in trouble-Major financially issues, or
having serious issues with a key customer who may pull the
account. (Also known as “The Burning Platform”.)
• A new leader takes over the business, and the company adopts
his new and radically way of doing things because he is the boss.
Remember it is a lot easier and less stressful not to change.
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1. SO WHAT IS YOUR
REASON TO CHANGE?
2. HOW COMMITED TO THE CHANGE IS
YOUR RGANIZATION?
3. ARE YOU IN IT FOR THE LONG TERM?
For change to be successful, the Benefits of Changing has to be perceived as
Significantly Bigger Benefit than not changing at all.
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Past Issues
To make change last, one has to do more than have a
kick-off meeting, and explain how the tools are used
with an occasional follow-up.
For a culture to TRULY CHANGE, in most
places IT WILL REQUIRE MANAGEMENT
TO ACT DRAMTICALLY DIFFERENTLY.
That’s why the burning platform or a new boss
HAVE SHOWN A GREATER CHANCE OF
SUCCESS.
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Some Basic Steps to Change
To ensure change has a higher chance at
succeeding, one needs to determine the maturity
of area, before a project can go ahead.
Step 1
Has a foundation to handle change been built?
Step 2
Has the group been formed into cells or teams around a
process and held responsible for their actions?
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Foundation Basics
1 Leadership must establish a clear company vision and goals. (This
information everyone in the organization knows and understands.) Survey all levels
to find out where the company is at.
2 Leadership must show understanding of the vision and show some
MAJOR Commitment. (Get on the floor and get involved!)
3 Leadership must involve the employees at all levels. (Cross functional
teams include multi-levels)
4 The plans & processes need to be clear and robust.
5 Have a Communication System from top to bottom and vice
versa. (A survey should be taken early in the process at all levels to
determine current condition.)
6 Leadership must provide an Infrastructure that handles change.
(Budget, Organization, Goals, Responsibilities, Plan, …)
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Surveys
Before beginning, one should know the current state of all levels
of the organization.
(Upper, and middle management as well as floor personnel)
• What programs were tried in the past, what worked, what didn’t work and
why? Teams, Quality Circles, Kaizen, Total Quality, RCCA …
• How each level feels about each other and the various programs.
• What each group thinks are the MAIN customer issues
• What each group thinks are the company goals and vision
• What are the key metrics at each level, imaginary or real.
To ensure the highest probability of success one needs to know about the
past as well as current situation.
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Review Survey Results
Once the survey is completed, analysis should be performed
• How did the metrics, vision, goals, customer issues and why
things did or didn’t work compare for the different levels.
• This will hopefully give you some insight as to why the
different groups feel about each other.
A FMEA might want to be used to try and track the failure modes and
thereby try and prevent future failure of these changes.
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Step 1 - Foundation
• This is the basic and is the MOST IMPORTANT step.
Unfortunately, this step is usually skipped due to time and one of
the major causes of change failing.
• If a proper foundation has not been built, the change will crumble
and the structure that was put in place will give way to the original
way of doing things.
• A foundation usually doesn’t happened overnight, it takes time
to build trust (in both directions) and for the employees to believe
that the “Program of the Month” is being changed.
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Step 2 - Forming Teams
However once the foundation has been put in
place, these are some of the basic steps.
1 Organize people around a process to form a team.
2 Set boundaries for the team that expand as the
team matures. (What decisions are the teams empowered to
make.)
3 The team manages the process.
4 The team is held accountable for the process. (Action
items include; Who, what, where, when things are to be done
and followed -up.)
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Step 2 - Continued
5 The team is responsible for improving the process.
6 The team goals are in line with the Company’s.
7 Train the team in team building, managing conflict,
decision making and Lean/ Six Sigma for starters.
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Summary
• Ensure a foundation is in place one needs:
Corporate Vision & Goals
Management Commitment
Involve the employees
A clear plan and process and
Infrastructure for change
• Ensure the team is organized around a process.
The team manages the process
The team is accountable
The team improves the process
Goals align with companies and
Train team members
Remember if you perform a survey, you better make sure some changes are
made or next time it will be even harder.
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Making Change Last !
Tips on making real change happen.
- Jay Watson
Employ Improvement Initiatives
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