Recently, someone
reminded me, again, of some of the formative change work
of John Kotter that has supported the thinking and
action of those of us in the change field. Kotter?s
initial work can be summarized via the following eight
key learnings:
| 1. |
Establishing a sense of urgency |
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- Examining market and competitive realities
and define the business case
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- Identifying and discussing crises, potential
crises, or major opportunities
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| 2. |
Forming a powerful guiding coalition |
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- Assembling a group with enough power to lead
the change effort
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- Encouraging the group to work together as
a team
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| 3. |
Creating a vision |
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- Creating a vision to help direct the change
effort
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- Developing strategies for achieving that vision
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| 4. |
Communicating vision |
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- Using every vehicle possible to communicate
the new vision and strategies
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- Teaching new behaviors by the example of the
guiding coalition
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| 5. |
Empowering others to act on the vision |
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- Getting rid of obstacles to change
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- Changing systems or structures that seriously
undermine the vision
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- Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional
ideas, activities, and actions
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| 6. |
Planning for and creating short-term
wins |
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- Planning for visible performance improvements
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- Creating those improvements
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- Recognizing and rewarding employees involved
in the improvements
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| 7. |
Consolidating improvements and producing
still more change |
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- Using increased credibility to change systems,
structures, and policies that don't fit the
vision
|
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- Hiring, promoting, and developing employees
who can implement the vision
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- Reinvigorating the process with new projects,
themes, and change agents
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| 8. |
Institutionalizing new approaches |
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- Articulating the connections between the new
behaviors and corporate success
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- Developing the means to ensure leadership
development and succession
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|
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What I asked myself
after re-reading Kotter?s eight key change
principles
are two questions,
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- ?What would I change from his
list of eight key factors?? and
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- ?What has changed in the
environment that would cause those leading
change to think and act differently??
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I would delete
nothing from the list that Kotter developed about
15 years ago. I have found repeatedly that all
eight of these factors are essential to ensure
the success of IT change projects. Some of the
eight factors, though, I have found to be more
important than the others and we want to highlight
them for those seeking successful ITIL endeavors.
The two factors from the list of eight thatrepeatedly
need more attention to ensure success are:
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- #2- form a powerful guiding coalition and
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- #5- empowering others to act on the vision
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In practice,
no real changes occur successfully unless the
leadership team or guiding coalition actively
supports the change effort (Kotter factor #2-
form a powerful guiding coalition) in a sustainable
way. This was stated in our original article but
what does it mean? It means that those with recognizable
formalauthority actively support the change effort
from beginning to end. People still listen to
those in charge. The necessary support comes in
a variety of forms:
|
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- actively communicating their support and reasoning
for the change effort,
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- procuring the right people resources to get
the job done well and
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- providing the dollars necessary to achieve
the objectives
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At other times the support required
is that of influence: |
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|
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Stating the case for change
to other key decision makers so that they
actively support the effort or at minimum
do nothing to get in the way.
The other key factor is that of sustainability:
Continuing to influence and support the ITIL
effort until successful completion of the
project. Sustained influence over time is
not necessarily something that every leader
or change sponsor perceives as requisite for
success. Our experience is that it is a critical
success factor.
The second factor of the eight that I have
essential to the success of every change project
is number #5- empowering others to act on
the vision. Most of the initial change management
work and literature focused on resistance
to change and finding ways to minimize the
resistance or to get the impacted stakeholders
to let go of their resistance. Over time,
I have found that approach to be burdensome
and not all that successful. It is simple:
people resist changing because they do not
want to change.
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|
-
I found that designing
change efforts based on the ideas of Dick
Axelrod (Terms of Engagement) and Diana
Whitney (The Power of Appreciative Inquiry)
to be more fruitful and impactful. My direct
experience is that it is more productive to
examine and articulate the case for meaning
or why the change matters than to attempt to
confront or overcome the resistance to
change. Rather than fighting with or against
what people don?t want I have found it more
?resultsful? to present the case for change
and to give people the chance to understand
and accept it.
Invariably, a critical mass will support the
change if you have a well thought out case
for change that includes the logical business
case and the opportunity for people to express
their sentiments. Once they understand and
accept the case for change is the new way
to go you can use past successes, attributes
and strengths of the people and the organization
to design more successful and easily implementable
change solutions.
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The other key
addition to Kotter?s seminal work that I find
necessary to add comes from the nature of the
development of ITIL itself. ITIL was born because
of the increased need for increased rigor, clarity
of process and cost effectiveness in IT. In the
recent past, both Wal-Mart and Dell have captured
great efficiencies and cost savings by initiating
major process improvements to their IT functions.
These changes have been predicated on three core
principles:
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- run a centralized information system
|
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- have common systems and common platforms
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- be merchants first and technologists second
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What does their
success imply for those leading other successful
IT change efforts? In my experience it strongly
suggests that successful change efforts integrate
in their planning and implementation the impacts
and influences on people (merchants first),
process (centralized information system) and
technology (common systems and platforms) and that
they each receive the appropriate level of
attention to ensure success. An exclusive focus on
technology, as has happened in many places in the
past, or improvements that don?t focus
sufficiently on process improvement, are not
likely to capture the range of benefits and
impacts that those designing the change hope to
achieve. ITIL is based on the premise that IT
processes must be improved. It is our experience
that the right blend of focus on change in
technology, process improvement and engagement of
the people who will need to change creates the
?special sauce? that cultivates successful ITIL
change efforts. Kotter in my opinion laid the
groundwork for successful change efforts. Many
change agents and leaders put his principles into
practice and found them to be pretty effective.
What we have learned overtime, especially in the
realm of IT and ITIL efforts, is that there are
three core refinements that can and should be
applied to informed ITIL efforts:
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Design a change approach
that appropriately considers an integrated
approach that always considers people, process
and technology and how they fit best together
given the specifics of your context, conditions
and culture.
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While most of
this September addition is simply a refinement
to the original article, we think it is an important
refinement that can make a significant difference
for you. Just adding a little salt to your steak
is also just a refinement but sometimes that little
bit of salt makes a big difference to the final
product.
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