Kathy Gibson reports from SMEXA 2014 – There is a critical weak point in organisational change management.
Change management is a powerful tool to get an organisation from one state to another – but many projects fail. In fact as many as 70% of change initiatives fail, says Digiterra’s Richard de Kock.
“Why do companies change?” he asks. It’s usually for positive reasons to improve bottom line or competitiveness – but there is still a negative connotation to change.
Organisational change management can be defined as a structured approach in an organisation for ensuring the changes are smoothly and successfully implemented that the lasting benefits of change are achieved.
De Kock adds that there are a number of different types of change, embracing different methodologies and dealing with people in different ways.
However, most change management typologies are fairly narrow in their application, without much room for flexibility. Hybrid models, on the other hand, tend to focus more holistically with organisations.
There’s no shortage of resources around change management, he adds. There is a wealth of literature and any number of consultants.
However, companies feel they are drowning in options without finding a model that suits their own environment, De Kock says.
Tools themselves cannot be the only answer to change management, he explains. Models, frameworks and techniques can only be as good as the skills of the people implementing them.
“You can’t manage change,” he says. “Things today are immediate, spontaneous, and difficult to manage.”
It is also wrong to expect that a definitive number of steps will lead to change. “You need to understand the context of the environment you need to deal with,” says De Kock. “When we apply programmed approaches we often fail to take the context into account.”
We also tend not to be objective, he adds. “We see the world through our eyes, not through other people’s eyes. Remember, with change its 10% technological knowledge and 90% emotional maturity.”
Good humour is important in this context, along with confidence and humility.
“Change is not the goal,” De Kock stresses. “Let’s think about the reason the business it doing the change in the first place; and try to align with that.”
De Kock concludes that the fatal flaw in organisational change management doesn’t lie in the tool, but in the application of those tools.
Where projects fail to deliver, he says, is with engagement.
Engaged people are driven and want to make a difference. Disengaged people just pitch up to work and want to simply get on with it. Then there are actively disengaged people who will actively undermine operations.
Unfortunately in South Africa there are four actively disengaged people for every engaged person in the workplace, while there are five disengaged people. This means just one in 10 South Africans is engaged.
Worse, these engaged people are not necessarily managers – and statistics show that 82% of the time companies pick the wrong people for management.
This means the chances of success for a major project are very low, De Kock says.
“So how can we approach this problem?” he asks. “The key lies in management. Employees’ perceptions of their primary managers influence about 70% of their engagements.”
Talented management is therefore key. And, while its possible to teach talent, it might not be worth the effort. This is because talent is deep rooted behaviour and habits; it’s how people are hardwired; it about how people react naturally to events; and it has to do with instinctiveness.
Companies still promote people who are good engineers or technicians into management positions, where they often become mediocre.
Harvard has identified five talents that managers should have: motivation, assertiveness, accountability, the ability to foster relationships and the ability to make decisions.
Change managers therefore need to refine their management talents, they need to create the conviction that people matter and act as a role model, De Kock says. Good management requires constant reinforcement an encouragement, develop their team’s talent, and reinforce shared values.
“I believe that if you do this you will improve your success in change management to 100%,” he says.
