What is change management?

The sweet spot where change and project management intersect is known as change management. When a company is facing change in any capacity, change management is how company leaders manage the processes, systems, structures, overall morale, and employee responsibilities during a time of transition.

Change is the only thing we know for sure will happen in life and business. Whether a company is planning for change via transformation or is unexpectedly presented with a challenge, having a protocol for change can help companies better adapt to solving problems in a shuffling dynamic.

Firms and companies have carefully created calculated principles for organizational change management to help navigate the rising challenges of transformation in the business landscape–which is unavoidable in today’s world.

Just how important is having a set of principles to use as a structured guideline? A Forbes Insights and PMI survey found that 85% of over 500 executive respondents said change management is critical to success in times of change of any kind, rather than expecting that workers will automatically react to change well in a competitive marketplace.

Compare this to Forbes Insights’ findings that more than one-third (38%) of respondents reported that their employees view change as a significant threat, and it is clear that fear of change is a problem that needs to be planned for and properly addressed.

“The key to change…is to let go of fear.” -Rosanne Cash

Fear of transition can be stifled while also setting up your company up for success by planning for change and creating your own change management plan using the following change management principles.

Six Change Management Principles

(1) Clearly identify the problem

Some change comes when we least expect it, and we must adapt accordingly. When a problem arises, it is crucial to flesh out why and how it came about and what needs to be done in order to solve it.

Some change is planned, like in the case of innovation. It might be the need for a new product, redefining a target audience, or addressing problems within a company dynamic. Whatever the problem, it must be identified and understood before it can be effectively tackled.

(2) Drive new direction with culture

Company culture is the script for how employees interact and work with one another. Change can disrupt the standard workflow and social status quo. Leaders must take culture into account to understand and overcome any resistance born in a time of transition.

Leading with culture also helps to maintain how employees connect and relate to one another, a crucial aspect to sustain during shifts so that everyone in the company is aligned.

(3) Unify top-level leadership

A company is only as reliable as the sum of all of its employees, starting from leadership. All upper-level executives and leaders must form a united front to clearly and effectively communicate the same information to lower-level employees so that the entire company is on the same page and acting congruently.

It is imperative that the corresponding information is shared throughout all levels to find success.

(4) Involve every level

Change shakes the foundation of an entire company; therefore, every employee is affected in some way. Involving mid-level employees as soon as possible opens the door for employees to express their concerns and share any logistical or technical holes they see from the start, working out any glitches.

It also serves as an opportunity for managers and leaders to consider the repercussions and effects the transformation will have on their teams and the customers at large.

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(5) Utilize change agents

Change agents are informal leaders who can help organizational leaders drive and champion change. From influential employees with a reputation of leading by example and earning the trust of others to stakeholders or veteran employees, change agents help to drive the challenging task of getting all employees on board.

Once identified, leaders should incorporate these people as a coalition. Together, they can help spread the unified message, get their teams integrated, and put people at ease.

(6) Define critical behaviors

Even with a clear vision of the problem/change at the executive level, a unified leadership front, and a coalition to help spread the word and integrate new practices, employee behavior won’t automatically change overnight. It is helpful to provide employees with the “why,” “what,” and “how” of change, as well as defined critical behaviors for them to follow immediately–within the first few days of the change.

Old patterns and habits can be hard to break, and new practices must be instilled as soon as possible for a smooth transition. This may mean training and frequent smaller meetings with managers so that they are equipped to communicate details of change and new expectations to employees.

Benefits of Strong Change Management

“The rate of change is not going to slow down any time soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades,” John P. Kotter says in his book Leading Change.

Because change is the only constant, having a robust protocol to follow to ease any size of transition sets companies up for triumph in chaos. A smooth transition internally maintains company morale and efficiency and translates directly to the external business.

According to research from Towers Watson, companies with healthy change management practices are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their competition. Being prepared to face change before it even happens immediately gives businesses a leg up on their peers.

Here are a few ways how:

1. Change management reduces the risk of project failure: Projects are more likely to fail when there is a lack of preparation. If changes are made too quickly without a proper plan for transition, or if not everyone is on board with new changes, the project can fall into chaos. A carefully constructed plan already has in mind any potential risks and is accompanied by analyzed strategies to overcome them.
2. Change management helps to eliminate confusion: A change management plan helps to reduce any trouble that may arise in transition, as each step of the change management process is detailed and outlined from the top down before implementation. This simultaneously tackles the fear of change and eliminates uncertainty about new business protocols–everyone is on the same page and adequately prepared for a shift.
3. Change management aids in maintaining a budget: Whether planned or unexpected, change is expensive! Incorporate a budget as part of your change management plan so that you don’t blindly pay for it later. Assign a cost estimate to each stage of the process. Doing so will provide an overall assessment of the cost of change and help to keep a new project on budget as it evolves.

Embrace Change to Improve Business

When an organization has a solid plan for how to embrace change, it can be used strategically to its advantage in the workplace and industry. A change management protocol can be used as an outline to evaluate and fine-tune an organization’s goals or priorities as well as to analyze how employees can help the company grow; it can be a tool used to expand and improve business overall, a steady progression of forward momentum.

“Change has a bad reputation in our society. But it isn’t all bad–not by any means. In fact, change is necessary in life–to keep us moving, to keep us growing, to keep us interested. Imagine life without change. It will be static, boring, dull,” Dr. Dennis O’Grady says in his article, The Change Game.

Looking for help with change management in your organization?

Please reach out to Voltage Control at hello@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

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Our world has changed more rapidly and unexpectedly than ever before these past several months. Nothing has been safe. Businesses have and continue to struggle with how to navigate the obligatory adjustments and unforeseen challenges the pandemic has presented. We’ve all been forced to improve our change management skills; it has become crucial on an elevated level. The ability to maneuver around obstacles and through transitions, and do it well, is essential.

When a company is facing change in any capacity, change management is how company leaders manage the processes, systems, structures, overall morale, and employee responsibilities during a time of transition. This is a skillset we know well at Voltage Control. We spend our days helping people embrace, face, and transition through changes. Whether your company is struggling to make sense of required changes or you’re thriving and embracing an innovative transition, we want to share some of our change management strategies with you so that you can be successful in these uncertain times.

When Change Comes Knocking

First and foremost, a carefully constructed change management plan is a crucial base-level strategy to stifle fear and prepare your company to adequately navigate change. Planning for change eliminates unwelcome surprises; you have a recipe to fall back on and plug into. Weave the following six change management strategy principles into your customized plan:

1. Pinpoint the problem

The first and most important thing to do when change–especially unexpected change–arises is to clearly identify it, why and how it happened, and what the solution is to solve it. You must fully know and understand the problem before you can adequately fix it. 

2. Integrate culture to drive new direction

Company culture is the backbone of every work environment and team dynamic. It is the script for how employees interact with one another, how they know what to expect, and how they should perform. Change can disrupt the standard workflow and social status quo. It is critical to keep culture top-of-mind during times of change so that you are not met with resistance and so that employees stay connected to one another. 

3. Unify top-level leadership

All links of the chain must be on the same page in order to survive change. Upper-level executives and leaders need to act congruently and share the same information throughout the company on all levels. A united front is the strongest defense against falling to the challenges of change.

4. Engage every level

The ripple effect of change is felt on some level throughout the entire company. So include everyone in the conversation to unify and confront the problem together. Involve mid-level employees as soon as possible by offering a safe space for everyone to share their concerns, including any logistical or technical issues they might see. Managers and leaders can also use this as an opportunity to evaluate the effects the change will have on their teams and the company at large.

5. Incorporate change agents

Change agents help to drive the challenging task of getting all employees on board. They are any informal leaders who can help organizational leaders drive and champion change. Whether they are internal leaders or stakeholders, change agents should be intentionally chosen. They will serve as a coalition to help spread the unified message, get their teams integrated, and put people at ease.

6. Identify critical behaviors

Even with the former five principles in place, change won’t happen overnight. Provide employees with defined critical behaviors to follow within the first couple of days that the change occurs. Provide them with the “what”, “why”, and “how” so that they fully understand the dynamics of the change and introduce any new practices necessary for a smooth transition. Old patterns are hard to break. Make sure to provide all employees with adequate training and informational meetings to communicate details of the change and new expectations. 

Break Barriers with Liberating Structures

A change management plan will help guide you through the dark uncertainty of change. Along the way, incorporate additional change management strategies to break up tensions and spark creativity–both crucial components of maintaining company culture and morale. 

One of our favorite ways to do this is to use Liberating Structures during meetings and workshops. This facilitation framework consists of 33 microstructures designed to build trust and enhance cooperation and communication between teammates. Participation is the name of the game with Liberating Structures. They are built around improving coordination by including and unleashing all participants; a great way to shake things up in times of tension. 

Each microstructure is easy to learn and implement. Try incorporating one, or several, of the following Liberating Strategies to connect your team and ideate solutions: 

1. Open Space

This activity helps to release people’s inherent creativity, leadership, and the ability to self-organize. It guides groups small and large to co-create agendas and address issues that are important to them. The release of central control empowers people to quickly take responsibility for solving problems and taking action. The structure ensures total inclusion and provides a space for all concerns and voices to be heard. 

2. Appreciate Inquiry

Groups of any size focus on and share their success stories rather than problems. Collectively, the group generates a list of orders that are necessary for its overall success. Inclusivity and open and honest conversations help to highlight the importance of investing in social supports. Overall, sharing successes elevates the energy in the room.

3. Conversation Cafe

This activity helps structure group discussion and train participants to strike an important balance between talking and listening. Attendees break into small groups and one person acts as the Host. They monitor seven agreements that must be met at all times, including respecting one another and suspending judgment as much as possible. If anyone in the group disrupts an agreement, the Host steps in. Groups engage in four rounds of timed conversation–each with clearly defined prompts and expectations–where participants equally share their thoughts and listen to others. The activity helps to foster calm and profound conversations.

4. Triz

Make space for innovation by inviting in creative destruction. This activity liberates options for renewal by focusing on identifying what the group must stop doing in order to achieve its goals. The group makes a list of all the ways it can achieve the worst result possible as it relates to their deepest goals. This airs out all of the worst-case scenarios and gives the group a chance to clearly analyze them and reflect on if they are acting them out in any way. Then, the group goes through the list and assigns counter action items to each scenario as to not create the undesired results. 

Change is inevitable. But we have the power to brace it with more grace and ease and use it to our advantage when we arm ourselves with change management strategies.

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” -John Maxwell 

Need a facilitator?

Voltage Control facilitates design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out at info@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

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What does it mean to ‘Control the Room’? This question frequently surfaces related to our free weekly Control the Room Meetup that we host in order to 1) convene and nurture our community of facilitators t 2) help facilitators hone their craft to improve the quality of meetings. In addition to supporting GV Design Sprint enthusiasts, we present and share many different methodologies, including Liberating Structures, Game Storming, Thinking Wrong, MG Taylor, Improv, and much more. Voltage Control is on a continuous mission to rid the world of terrible meetings. The Control the Room Meetup is one of the ways we’re working to create a more effective, productive, and inclusive meeting culture across industries, from the inside out. 

Control vs. No Control

In the facilitator realm, the word ‘control’ can get dicey. The big issue is deciding upon the meaning. People hear control and immediately think “tight” control; that a dictatorship is the only way to gain control of a room. This can disturb some people because facilitation 101 enforces non-biased and inclusive leadership; a good facilitator is a mirror that reflects the group back to themselves to help them arrive at solutions, not one who imposes their will against others. We believe that in order to best serve teams it is necessary to incorporate an element of control to triumph over the chaos of unproductive meetings.

This is not about controlling people. It’s about controlling the magic happening in a room. It is about intention. The heart of the purpose of a magical/Jedi facilitator is “controlling energy”, “controlling attention”, and “controlling room intelligence”.

A good facilitator liberates the people in the room by controlling the environment and attention so that everyone can thrive, together.

It takes true mastery to do this fluidly. That’s the inspiration behind the name of our weekly meetup, annual facilitator summit, and podcast ‘Control the Room’–to embody the balance of control necessary for facilitators to successfully navigate the structures, and lack thereof, of meetings. Each space offers thought-provoking insight into and active participation of the concept of control vs. no control. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. The steady question is, “How do we control and how do we do it with ease to achieve a purpose?” 

I started the Control the Room Podcast to explore this question. It is a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others have loose. The podcast delves deep into understanding how these opposing approaches translate into meeting success or failure across industries, and ultimately how a balance can achieve the best results. 

Forced Control in the Virtual Landscape

The controversial topic of control vs. no control has reached a new height in the recent forced shift to the virtual landscape. For me, it has prompted the questions, “How can I control less in this new space? In what ways am I controlling more?” The thing is, we’re in an entirely new frontier. In a virtual space, many things happen that are hard to control that wouldn’t otherwise happen in person. For example, virtual meetings often suffer from people showing up late, poor internet connection, lack of attendee camera use, etc. It’s just a different world. Therefore, the nature of control is different. And the current technology limits our ability as facilitators to read the room and adjust the energy accordingly.

We’re forced to adhere to and be limited by the structure of the online platforms. For instance, it’s nearly impossible to do an Open Space in Zoom. While there is technology that supports loose control strategies and allows you to run Liberating Structures, those tools fall down when you need to rely on tighter control. Therefore it’s much more difficult to adjust the level of tightness/looseness of control in a virtual space. You can’t easily improv or tweak your approach as needed on the fly anymore like in person; you have to be more intentional. 

It actually feels quite counterintuitive: More upfront control is needed to have less control in a virtual space. If you want to create a loose environment for folks, you have to be more controlling to structure it due to the current technology and tools available. We now have to lean in and do a lot of work upfront in order to create an environment that will best serve the (virtual) room. In-person, the environment is all set up. You don’t need multiple apps and various virtual tools to supply attendees with what they need to collaborate and reach their goals. You can improv and not have things go sideways.

Ultimately, a level of control is needed to direct the energy of virtual meetings so that they are productive and successful.

The question is how what level of control is required to achieve our purpose and how might we set our initial conditions such that our outcome is inevitable. 

Tight & Loose Control

Control can be tight or loose, but a lack of control altogether is bad. When folks crop dust your calendar with unnecessary meetings that lack an agenda and instead take a blind “hope for the best” meeting approach, then we are out of control. This leads to poor outcomes and people dreading their work. The danger of bad meetings is real, $541 billion dollars real. An in-depth study by Doodle, the online scheduling service, observed 19 million meetings and over 6,500 interviews with working professionals across the U.S., U.K., and Germany, and found that steep price was the estimated cost of inefficient meetings in the U.S. in 2019. 

Control Stealers

A poor meeting dynamic implodes productivity and falls to disorder and confusion. I.e. a lack of control produces poor results. So what makes a meeting bad? Several things. Here are a few of the top control stealers to be aware of: 

• The meeting lacks a clear purpose. There must be a clear objective to drive a successful meeting. That’s because when a goal is unidentified or vague, there is nothing tangible to work toward. Essentially, you will spin your wheels. You can’t arrive at your destination if you don’t know what it is.
• There is an inadequate agenda. You must consider the overall arc you wish to create for meeting attendees as well as a detailed outline of essential topics you wish to communicate. Identifying the purpose and sought-after outcomes of the meeting will allow you to outline and synchronize a timely and focused flow, which will help you get the most out of the meeting. You need a destination and a roadmap to get there. 
• The environment is one-sided and not inclusive. The role of an effective facilitator is to be the leader, moderator, connector of big ideas and themes, and guider of solutions. This is the best way to serve the group as a whole so that they may achieve their goals. However, this can’t be accomplished if the meeting is a lecture with no room for open discussion and dialogue or if one person is dominating the conversation. The best meetings are ones where all attendees are seen, heard, and are free to contribute their ideas. 

Gain Loose Control With Liberating Structures 

So, lack of control broods bad meetings which stunt productivity and creativity; you have no control when you devolve into chaos. Our antidote to chaos at Voltage Control is loose control, which is achieved via Liberating Structures–they distribute control and unleash everyone. They do not enforce too much rigidity, just enough structure to orient and guide the participants towards outcomes. The facilitation framework has 33 microstructures designed to build trust and enhance cooperation and communication between team members. Participation is the main pillar with Liberating Structures; they are built around improving coordination by including and unleashing all participants. Each microstructure is straightforward and unchallenging to implement, which makes them a great way to gain loose control of the room.

The current virtual landscape only supports some of these adequately, and I’m in constant conversation with fellow facilitators and thought leaders about how, when possible, to implement them more. I’m curious to see what technology comes out to support more Liberating Structures in a virtual space.

Facilitators Lead Change

With the tools that are now available, control can be implemented on either side of the spectrum–tight or loose. It is difficult to move fluidly between the two, and some people would argue that you shouldn’t. At Voltage Control, we believe that finding a recipe that implements loose structures, and therefore loose control, is the best way to help groups achieve their goals–enough structure to constructively guide the energy in the room but not so much control that the energy is disrupted or stunted. It takes skill to find the formula that’s just right–enter a facilitator. A skilled facilitator works to weave the tapestry, seamlessly. That’s why I’m passionate about sharing my experiences and tool kit and educating and empowering other facilitators to be their best. Because a great facilitator has the power to help create impactful and important change. 

If you are interested in building your facilitation skills, please join us for our weekly virtual Control the Room Meetup every Thursday afternoon. The discussion topics vary, and it’s a great way to connect with fellow facilitators and learn about the art of facilitation. Together, let’s change the meeting culture to offer more creativity, collaboration, and transformation so we can create a better world.

Need help building a better meeting? Bring in a professional facilitator from Voltage Control.

Voltage Control designs and facilitates innovation training, Design Sprints, and design thinking workshops, both in-person and virtual. Please reach out to us at hello@voltagecontrol.com if you want to talk.

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“In life, change is inevitable. In business, change is vital.” -Warren G. Bennis

If there’s one sure thing in life, it’s that change is constant and inescapable. And when it comes to business, change is the crucial, center pillar. It is the gateway to explore new opportunities, exercise creativity, learn new skills, and discover inventive solutions to problems. Ultimately, change, and navigating it well, leads to success in business and innovation. That’s why a change management plan is crucial.

So, how do you “control” change in the workplace? In essence, incorporating a change management process to a project or an organizational transformation provides a structure to adapt to change, rather than blindly react to it.  

A sound change management plan can be the difference between a successful and failed project.

It serves as a roadmap to manage and control change during pivotal phases of a project’s life cycle. Let’s take a look at what a change management plan is and to construct one.

The five steps of a change management plan

What are we really talking about when we talk about a change management plan? In regards to the project you are pursuing, it answers the questions: “Who?” “What?” “When?” “Where?” “Why?” And, “how?” of change. Follow the steps below to create your own change management plan:

1. Identify “who”

First, clearly define who all is involved in the project, across all levels. Who is responsible for what in the change management plan? What role do they play in managing, reviewing, and authorizing change requests? 

2. Select a change control board

Secondly, staff a change control board. This group of carefully selected individuals is solely responsible for making decisions about whether or not proposed changes should be implemented. They help guide the change process for optimal success. 

3. Develop a process

In order to effectively conduct change management, you must identify a process to do so. This process will allow people to efficiently submit change requests that will then be evaluated, authorized, managed, and controlled by the change control board. Change management is unmanageable without a structured process and training in project management. 

4. Change request materials

Once your change management structure is organized, you need a way for people to submit change requests. A change request form is one way to receive ideas and data. Having a consistent procedure to gather information throughout the process is important for the project’s fluency and ultimate success. 

A change log serves as a central location to collect and track all proposed changes. It is here that change can be identified and requests can be made and approved. It’s purpose is to hold all matters of change so you can then manage and track it.

5. Manage and Track Change

Measuring and tracking change allows you to successfully monitor progress throughout the project process. In order to track change, you must have something to measure it against. That is the project baseline, or the defined scope of the project. It includes the desired results, expectations, and restraints of the problem you are addressing, as well as the fundamental details of the project like time, cost, and quality. The project baseline is backed by the change control board and used as the reference to identify and track the “how”, “what”, “when”, “where”, and “why” of change. 

So where does a change management plan come in to play in a project’s life cycle? Big change occurs in the prototyping and testing phases of the designing thinking process. Below, we take a closer look at the project life cycle process, through the eyes of design thinking methodology, to better understand how and when change plays a role. 

Design Thinking Project Life Cycle

1. Empathize

The first step of any project is to clearly identify the objective and need you want to address. In design thinking, this starts with empathizing with your target audience to thoroughly understand their desires and needs in order to best meet them. This stage is focused on gathering as much information as possible about the target audience to prepare you for the next step of the process. 

2. Define

Using the information gathered in the first phase, it is now time to put it all together to define the problem you want to address. This step’s objective is to convert the identified problem into a human-centered statement to keep the audience as the focus, rather than focusing on technology, monetary returns, or specifics of a product. The insights and perspectives defined will guide you throughout the rest of the process; they serve as the backbone of the project. 

3. Ideate

Now that you have identified the objective/problem, the third phase is where you generate as many possible creative solutions as possible to solve it. Nothing is off limits here: think outside of the box, get creative, and say “yes” to all ideas. By the end of this brainstorm session, your team will have possible ideas to then test. 

4. Prototype & Test

It’s time to test all of your creative ideas! Through a process of trial and error, your team identifies which of the proposed solutions would best address the identified problem. Once those are decided on, you then create collaborative, rapid prototypes–a simulation of your ideas and designs–to properly investigate their effectiveness in generating solutions. This is a phase where change happens.

It’s only natural that after you have defined the problem and start executing possible solutions that change will occur. You will likely find through prototyping that there are unanswered questions or holes in the project that need to be filled in order to successfully address the audience’s needs moving forward. Your team may need to go back to the drawing board to adapt to these changes. Therefore, it’s imperative to be able to manage and track the changes with a change management plan to keep the project’s momentum going.

Once you arrive at the core solution to solve the identified problem, you tangibly test it by showing people in your target audience a prototype and collect their feedback. Change also occurs here. User feedback will likely alter your original prototype, in a good way. You use the feedback to refine the product and fine-tune it so that it optimally serves the user. Even after you identify the “winning” version of your product, you will continue to adapt to environmental and systematic changes that influence and alter the users’ needs. Therefore, you will return to the design thinking process and your change management plan to refine the product and adapt to the evolving needs.

Preparing for the inevitable change that you will be faced with during the design thinking process will equip you with the tools you need to gracefully navigate it.  With a solid and reliable plan in place, you will be able to work with the flow of change, rather than against it.

Need a facilitator?

Voltage Control facilitates design thinking workshops, innovation sessions, and Design Sprints. Please reach out at info@voltagecontrol.com for a consultation.

The post How to Construct an Effective Change Management Plan appeared first on Voltage Control.

Earlier this year, I was interviewed by David Holley, the national correspondent at Xconomy, and he wrote about my transformation through fitness and entrepreneurship. About a month later, Eli Wood, one of Voltage Control’s master facilitators, led a group of local CTOs and me through an exploration on purpose. During this exercise, fueled by the reflections from David’s interview, it became apparent that my life’s work has been about change and transformation.

You could say I’m a change junkie; I love continuous improvement, and I’m always curious to reveal inefficiencies and find a way to improve. When I look back, I see that all my career choices have been about change management strategies at some level. And now, as a facilitator, I’m helping companies through change every day.

The topic of change also drove the creation of my first book, Beyond the Prototype: A roadmap for navigating the fuzzy area between ideas and outcomes. (I’m excited to share that it will be available September 12, 2019.) Beyond the Prototype is a field guide that picks up the Design Sprint story where Jake Knapp left off. I wrote the book because, after running Design Sprints for companies both large and small, I found one common truth: while Sprints create lots of momentum and reveal the path forward, few companies are able to execute on the post-Sprint journey successfully.

That’s because the path after a Sprint isn’t as prescriptive or precise. It’s a gray area. It’s fuzzy. In this gap between ideas and execution, things can grind to a halt or worse, fall apart. I wrote Beyond the Prototype to help bridge the gap from ideation to execution so that you don’t find yourself looking back at the results of your Sprint wondering if you’ll ever take action on them.

Change management strategies & transformation

My approaches are rooted in change management and transformation philosophy. Change takes patience and commitment; you cannot expect to flip a switch and see things metamorphose before your eyes. It’s often the case that you work, toil, and exhaustively-pursue change. Only then does it seems to happen “overnight” as if by magic. Change is akin to a social movement within your company. There has to be a tipping point, and enough momentum has to build for the entire system to give way.

Change is akin to a social movement within your company. There has to be a tipping point and enough momentum has to build in order for the entire system to give way.

This process can take a long time, and many complicating factors can arise along the way. We must be resilient and pliable (aka agile) so that we can embrace the unexpected in our change initiative. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we opposed change while trying to implement it?

“The idea of VUCA has since been embraced by leaders in all sectors of society to describe the nature of the world in which they operate: the accelerating rate of change (volatility), the lack of predictability (uncertainty), the interconnectedness, of cause-and-effect forces (complexity) and the strong potential for misreads (ambiguity).” — From “Understanding the Challenges of a VUCA Environment” by Brigadier General George Forsythe, Karen Kuhla and Daniel Rice

Continuous transformation is the idea of continually scanning and probing to uncover organizational incongruencies and unmet needs. Just as we manage our products, so must we manage our organization and how we build products. While strategy and purpose are paramount, if we don’t focus inward on the “how” we will never reach out desired outcomes. There are countless articles and books on change management principles, innovation, and organizational strategy, but in this article, I’d focus on the primary driver of change: the employee.

Let’s consider three elements of the employee experience that are my top change management principles: Structure, Incentives, and Story.

My Three Change Management Principles

1. Structure

As Safi Bahcall author of Loonshots says, “If culture eats strategy for breakfast, structure eats strategy for lunch.” Structure is not only how your org chart looks but also how people interact and the architectures that emerge. Often, without the correct team structure in place, change can’t happen.

Conway’s Law tells us that: “organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.” Named after a computer programmer, Conway’s Law is the belief that your organizational structure will determine the type of products you’re able to produce. That’s because existing architecture is hard to shift. This is where some companies struggle with culture change. You can’t simply move desks or change up the office floor plan and expect innovation. More systemic structural changes are likely necessary. You may have to restructure thing like: how your group is formed, how reporting works, or how teams communicate and collaborate to support the new vision you’ve laid out.

It’s crucial that you discover and empower the people in your organization that are hungry to support your change initiatives.

Another thing to consider is identifying the change agents within your team. Who can be your catalysts, your allies, your intrapreneurs? Discover and empower the people in your organization who are hungry to support your change initiatives, both current and emergent. Empower these people to go forth, do things differently, and help spread the word.

Try This: Stakeholder Mapping

Stakeholder Mapping is one activity you can do to start reflecting on the people who should (and shouldn’t) be involved in your change initiative and how. Check out this article for a good intro and explanation of how to do it.

2. Incentives

Another critical change management step is determining incentives. When you’re trying to inspire employees to champion your innovation initiative, be aware of what’s in it for them. What can you do to excite your team and make them feel like the process is beneficial for them as well as the larger organization? I encourage companies to find ways to align the projects with what employees are looking for — personal growth, professional growth, building new skills. Let your team know that they’ll be getting something out of this change too. The company will change and grow, and they will grow and change positively as well.

In design work, we often plot out our user’s journey and think of the ways we can delight them at every moment with our product or services. What if we did the same for our internal team? Plot out your project plan and deliberately plan the milestones, moments of reflection, and moments to celebrate and pause on your big journey.

Try This: Empathy Mapping

Empathy Mapping is typically done for our end-users, but employees and internal teams working on a critical initiative are users too. Treat employees with the same respect and uncover their essential needs and wants to better design a path forward that responds to these desires. Do an Empathy Mapping exercise to uncover what your employees or colleagues need, want, and do.

3. Story

The third and final aspect of change management that I’ve found to be invaluable is the story. How are you telling the story of your project or initiative to your team, key stakeholders, or company at large? Without deliberately, and continuously, crafting that story, things can get away from you. As part of your change management strategy, decide early on how and when you will communicate the status and progress of your project: is there a regular email? A website that gets updated? An informative blog post with pictures and links? An all-company Slack? Think about the best ways to share the ups-and-downs of your work with others and be open to hearing feedback coming from the outside as well.

The reason story and narrative is so important to change is that the biggest cause of internal resistance is ambiguity. Ambiguity is unavoidable in projects, but it is controllable. Knowing this, plan for uncertainty and build ways to combat it where possible. Set clear expectations about project scope, milestones, the process, and desired outcomes.

Try This: Guardian of Change

Guardian of Change allows you to quickly facilitate and get the group to agree on what they are going to tell their superiors and other stakeholders. Through this activity, you create an elevator pitch, your super-short summary of what was accomplished during a meeting or workshop. Learn more at MGRush.

Let’s talk about change management strategies.

Voltage Control offers innovation consulting, design sprint facilitation, and design thinking training. Please reach out to us at info@voltagecontrol.com if you want to talk.

The post My Life as a Change Junkie appeared first on Voltage Control.

Growing up, Deborah Jann was an only child and lived in a neighborhood with very few children her age, so she began to entertain herself by creating stories, games, activities, and continually looked for ways of doing things faster and easier. To say she set herself up to be an innovation guru from an early age may be an understatement.

She had no idea that a random three-hour car ride with two total strangers would lead her to create a new experience for creative problem solving, but that is just what it did. When Deborah offered a ride to two fellow conference attendees to the airport near her home, she discovered they all had challenges both professionally and personally that they could work through and solve together. At the end of the inspiring ride, the term “carpool innovation” sparked an idea that led to what she called Roll Out.

“While you’ve got the passing scenery, neuroscience, and you’ve got people who are all open-minded to helping one another, we had gone through the creative problem-solving process while we were driving. As I’m driving away after having an amazing, very impactful three hours with two strangers, I drove away, and I said, ‘That was so cool, what if I were to scale this?’”

Rolling innovation

Deborah immediately starting thinking about how she could capture what had just happened on that car ride to the airport. How could she bring this into the work she was already doing within her company? She started looking at transportation options from buses to limos; the idea was that an event could take place at a destination, but how much could be done on the way to the destination? Why not use downtime to facilitate conversation, transformation, and allow strangers to help one another?

Why not use downtime to facilitate conversation, transformation and allow strangers to help one another?

“The transformation that happens just by people working with one another. They were all strangers; they were all individuals that wanted to try to have some breakthrough thinking on their challenges. The way I designed it was that everybody had a takeaway, everybody had an action plan on what they could do to move forward more productively on these challenges.”

While the idea was a popular one and people loved the concept, citing logistical problems and safety concerns, the plan had to be scrapped.

“But the type of work that I was doing, I don’t do it on the bus anymore, but I had so many people when I would talk to them about the Roll Out, they said, ‘I love the way you think Deborah. I love the process. What if we take the bus out of it?’”

Eventually, she was able to adapt her process, her design, and her IP to set up programs in more traditional settings or by challenging people to choose a less typical location. “I did a strategic planning event in an art gallery. We would move into different parts of the gallery to do different steps of the process so that they had the visuals as inspiration for how to look at their strategic plan in a different light. I tried to emulate the [bus] experience by having a more original location.”

You can check out a video on her Roll Out concept here.

Everyone can be an innovator

Deborah finds it curious when companies have an innovation committee, given that every employee has the power to innovate, whether by challenging the status quo or by adding new value.

“Everybody has it within their capability to make a minor refinement to an existing process or product.”

She believes that problems or complaints are simply nothing more than opportunities or needs that are not being met. When a company has an innovation committee or deems certain people responsible for innovation, they do a disservice because everybody has the power to innovate. Innovation shouldn’t be a box that has to be checked off.

Many innovation committees seem to work under the pretense that innovation only comes from the top or senior staff, but Deborah believes that best practice would be that you’re driving innovation from the top. “While everybody has it within them to innovate, do they necessarily feel empowered? Are they rewarded and recognized when they are innovating or if they bring forth ideas? How are we going to drive innovation, and how are we going to make sure that we’re rewarding and recognizing innovation, and that we have an innovation process?”

Deborah shared how she would propose a company shift from an innovation committee to team-wide innovation. Her first step would be not to call it an innovation committee. It needs a new name. “ I think coming up with a name for something congruent with either the values of the company, the strategic direction, the purpose, the focus so that everybody is feeling inspired to be in service of that focus.” Then she would task them with how they could work in collaboration with senior leadership, to drive innovation through the company.

And if your company already has an innovation committee, you can quickly reshape and re-purpose. “It could be that you have different people on the innovation committee responsibility for different projects. Maybe one is in charge of organizing hack-a-thons, and others in charge of deciding how innovation should be rewarded and recognized. They could be each having their own, and engaging the rest of the organization, and coming up with ideas that ultimately are presented. That’s how I could see it work out, that it’s not them making all the decisions, but they’re canvassing the organization. They’re the team lead, so they’re responsible for an area, they’re not accountable. Ultimately leadership is accountable, but they are responsible for different components or elements of driving innovation.”

How can you measure success?

While it is nice to think that generating a bunch of ideas will lead to new business, how can you measure whether the ideas being put forth are good for business or driving everyone in the right direction? How can you tell if you need to change course?

Deborah says there may be many different ways to measure the success of ideas: “They’re measuring it with some psychometric instrument, doing some gap analysis, probably aggregate reporting. Then, targeted intervention around development. Whether it’s leadership development or a values refresh, and then being able to attach that to performance targets and performance reviews to show demonstrated behaviors in that area.”

Putting some model into practice will help the company determine what initiatives are making a difference and which ones might not be hitting their mark. Even being more focused as to what types of meetings you are having and their purpose will better drive success.

“Is the meeting a brainstorming meeting to generate new ideas? In which case, we want to defer judgment for a while in that meeting. Or is it a reporting meeting, which is a very different type of thinking? Or, are we here to make decisions, to knock things off the list? You’re probably going to have a better meeting if you’re all thinking about it in the same way. What are you trying to achieve?”

“I think having meetings run more efficiently and having them more organized according to applying different types of thinking, will lead to more productive meetings.”

Deborah also mentioned that you have to weigh the accuracy and efficiency of your decision. This is a big part of the process of bringing success to your ideas. “Do you have a well thought-out decision, but you took so long you missed your window of opportunity? Or is it that you didn’t do enough work on the front end? You didn’t have enough of an original idea? Or you didn’t do your homework or gather enough research, and now you put something out that was flawed in logic, and superficial.”

When asking Deborah how she would structure a successful innovation program, she stated: “Innovation needs to be driven at the senior level. We know from Dr. Brett Richards that systems like the OGI (Organizational Growth Indicator) can measure an organization’s adaptive capacity and ability to create new value through innovation. Involving leadership, having innovation processes like design thinking or CPS in place, and communicating innovation efforts, learnings, and successes are key ways to raise engagement and drive innovation.”

Deborah’s Innovation Silver Bullets

1. Socializing ideas (including co-creation)
2. Using marketing techniques to create buzz and results

“It’s like the Hollywood script. I’ve got an idea, but it’s a great idea in my mind. I’m only going to find out if it’s a good idea if I start to share it. Then you get feedback. Then you tweak it and try it again. You socialize it so that when you present it to the key stakeholders, you’ve already anticipated some of the objections and you’re going to have a better chance of success.”

While Deborah has had some great success, she has had some fails along the way that taught her a lot. She heard some great advice from an innovation leader from Disney at a conference that stuck with her. “She had this great expression: ‘Have affairs with your ideas, don’t marry them.’ Going back to the Roll Out idea, I married that idea — I didn’t have an affair with it. I was convinced that it was going to be the new way, that it was going to be cool, that it was going to go viral. I didn’t listen to some of the feedback because I was convinced this was a winning idea. Had I had an affair with it, I could have saved myself some time and money.”

If you want to read my other articles about innovation experts and practitioners, please check them all out here.

The post Measurable Results Through Memorable Experiences appeared first on Voltage Control.

This is part of my series on thought leaders in the innovation space. Check out the other articles here.

Braden Kelley started his career as an undergrad working for Symantec. As the internet became ubiquitous, Symantec enlisted him to establish a web presence to serve their customer support online. In the process, he found himself immersed in the world of innovation and design thinking as he worked with designers and customers in focus groups to uncover their needs. Inspired by this work, Braden returned to school for his MBA so he could fully embrace a career that allowed him to focus on providing new value for the customer.

Gaining more knowledge over the years, Braden realized he had contributions he thought would be valuable to the industry. After writing numerous articles, he eventually distilled his observations in two books: Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire and Charting Change.

He shared with me his views on how companies can create a solid foundation for innovation and successfully move their ideas from invention to adoption.

“Innovation transforms the useful seeds of invention into widely adopted solutions valued above every existing alternative.”

Braden’s definition of innovation highlights some key distinctions. First, in order for an idea to be more than an invention, it must be widely adopted. Second, more than just being useful, an idea must be valuable and monetized at a point customers are willing to pay for it. Third, it must displace an existing solution providing so much value that customers readily change their habits. Products like the VCR, mp3 player and Gorilla Glass are a few examples of products that were invented and then experienced a 20–50 year gap before they were widely used by consumers as true innovations.

Value creation, value translation, value access

The ideal components for successful innovation include value creation — the initial invention — as well as value translation and value access. “The parts that often get neglected are the value translation component, which is the component about both internally and externally helping people understand how this new thing will fit into their lives. The third point is value access, which is, how you help people get to the value that you’ve created.”

The story of the iPod provides an illustration of the successful employment of all three components. In creating the iPod, Apple not only created new value, but they also created a way to access existing value — a person’s existing music library. Having access to one’s entire music collection in one device created another opportunity for innovation.

“Think about the initial invention of a hard disk-based music player and trying to navigate your entire music collection with two buttons, forward and backward. It’s pretty hard to go through thousands of songs with a forward and a back button. So, Apple created the scroll wheel, and that allowed people to navigate their music collection much more easily.” Then iTunes was created to organize and eventually add to the music library.

In a move to open up value access, “Apple also broke out of the Macintosh mold of keeping things Mac only. The key inflection point for the growth of the iPod was creating a Windows version of iTunes.” Realizing it would be tricky selling a device that wasn’t easily described, Apple knew customers needed a place to experience the iPod. “Apple understood that people working in Target or Best Buy weren’t going to necessarily do as good of a job giving people the experience of using the devices as they thought they could do themselves.” Enter the Apple store and Genius Bar.

“The Apple store serves partially in that value translation component. The Genius Bars serve on the value access side by helping people understand how to get more value out of the device they might be purchasing.”

Start with the end in mind

Measurement provides a good starting point for establishing a strong foundation. “No innovation idea emerges fully formed. What people come up with are idea fragments and you have to collect and connect those dots to create a fully formed idea.” Based on those ideas, begin by identifying the value you want to create.

In order to make sure an initiative creates all the value it intends to, Braden advocates for the use of experiments with checkpoints. “You can have checkpoints that you establish along the way in terms of getting from what you’re able to do now versus your vision for the full value that you hope to create.” When thinking through experiments to validate assumptions about feasibility, viability, and desirability, also consider the flaws that might be present in your experimentation process.

“Start plotting out all the different experiments that you plan to run and the learning that you hope to get from each one. Those are the things that you can measure against to show that you’re making progress, to show that you’re going to get to the end and that you’re on track.”

Planning with the end in mind also includes consideration for scaling the invention. “Make sure you’re laying out checkpoints around your ability to scale it, because if you can’t get to that [wide] adoption point, then most likely you’re not going to get your investment back.” Think through what you’ll have to work against in order to scale so that profitability is part of the long-term plan from the beginning. Braden looks to companies like Tesla as an example of the potentially disastrous effects an inability to profitably scale can have on a product and a company’s viability despite having strong ideas and exploration practices.

A core team of innovation catalysts

Rather than siloing innovation to a single team, Braden has observed that having a core innovation team to facilitate innovation across the company has many benefits. The core team defines frameworks and methodologies for the organization and educates people on the innovation tools at their disposal. The team can work with HR to organize ways of staffing and funding innovation projects. And they can facilitate communication across the organization about ongoing projects both internally and externally. “The approach that I see working the best is where you have a group that’s moving information around, connecting people across the organization with the tools and resources that they need, and helping to tell those stories so that people get excited, engaged, and stay engaged.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to go out and ask people for ideas if you’re not ready to process them and develop them.”

The company’s role, then, is to support the core team with business strategy and goals to align innovation efforts with overall organizational strategy. When establishing this clarity of purpose, Braden encourages having the backend process in place first. “It doesn’t make any sense to go out and ask people for ideas if you’re not ready to process them and develop them and to help people move them from an idea to reality.”

Starbuck’s My Starbucks Idea initiative — a site that solicited ideas from the general public — offers an example of the difficulties in opening the ideation process up too much. Approaches like this produce far more ideas than an organization is able to process and can create a dip in trust and enthusiasm when people don’t see anything come of their suggestions. This can have the unintended consequence of limiting an organization’s ability to solicit ideas later on when they are truly needed and can be acted upon.

To establish the backend process for innovation, Braden starts with defining innovation. “Creating a shared definition for innovation can be a helpful exercise that forms a basis of your overall common language of innovation and some of the other key elements [of] your vision strategy and goals.” This foundation helps people know where to focus, what to focus on, why the organization is pursuing innovation, and how to go about it so it can be leveraged to keep people engaged in creating actionable ideas aligned with the overall business strategy.

“Business strategy goals and metrics are key parts of [the] foundation to build [a] common language of innovation that helps people know how to engage.” In addition to defining what an organization is going to pursue, it can also help to define what won’t be pursued. “I think that it is super helpful because people only have a limited amount of energy and creative energy, so the more you can channel it in the direction that you can actually develop and that are most valuable to you as an organization, the greater return on investment you’re going to get as an organization and also the individuals are gonna get on expending their creative energy.”

This foundation that establishes aligned goals, shared language, and processes for idea intake and processing is what Braden believes to be the innovation silver bullet. “I think if you start well, you finish well, and if you start poorly, you finish poorly. If people really want to be successful in innovation you have to do hard work up front [putting] the right foundation in place so that whatever structure you build on top [will] stand up for a long time rather than come crashing down around your head.”

“I think if you start well, you finish well, and if you start poorly, you finish poorly.”

With a sturdy foundation in place, teams can be empowered to break out of the mindset that people are either innovative or not and open up the process of innovation to allow for greater participation. “Different people tend towards different roles when it comes to innovation, and all the roles are important and needed across the process of innovation.”

In his first book, Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, Braden developed nine innovation roles that he has since developed into a set of cards he uses at workshops.

“It can be very interesting to hear the conversations in the room about not only how individuals tend, but also how organizations tend. [You can learn] which roles tend to be widely available in an organization, which ones tend to be scarce, and how that affects the innovation upwards through the company.”

Braden encourages organizations to use this information to take a more conscious approach to forming innovation teams in order to bring the right roles together and experience greater innovation success.

Balancing exploration and exploitation

As ideas begin to flow, Braden observes that organizations must be conscious of the balance between exploration and exploitation — their present and their future. “Within organizations, there’s this constant tension between exploration and exploitation. You have to have most of the organization focused on scalability, profitability, and making things as efficient as possible, but you also need to have part of the organization looking for those new sources of value that are going to reinvigorate the company and keep it healthy.”

The exploration side of the equation involves staying connected to customers to see how they’re changing over time. “What [customers] trust you to do may also change over time. So, you may be allowed to go to new areas that you weren’t allowed to go to a year ago, five years ago because what they’re trusting you to do may change.”

Finding a balance between exploration and exploitation isn’t easy, and Braden has seen some well-intentioned ideas backfire. Google offering employees 10% of their time to work on an innovation of their choosing is one such case. The reality of this perk is that the 10% of time usually comes out of an employee’s personal time rather than within their 40-hour work week. “Percent time programs often backfire because organizations don’t put a plan in place for how to make that time available.” As organizations establish the foundation for their innovation efforts, incorporating these practical considerations can lead to greater success rates.

The whole person approach to staffing

Braden is encouraged to see the way we think about work shifting for the better. “As companies start to value managing this tension between exploration and exploitation and scaling, [when] they value the sources they’ve already created versus finding new ones, then it enables people to start thinking about how they structure their organization.”

Rather than thinking in terms of job description, more companies are considering the whole person and the capabilities that individuals bring to the organization. “Cisco has this internal internship program where you might be working in finance, but you go do an internship in marketing. So you might spend four days a week working on your regular job and then another day working on a marketing project. So, rather than hiring [from] the outside world, organizations within the organization that have project-based work they need to be done can potentially, as a career development move, leverage people inside the company.” Not only does this approach create opportunities for team building and knowledge transfer, it can also help people looking for a shift find their passion without leaving the company.

Braden looks to companies like Intuit, 3M, and Amazon as leaders in innovation. “Intuit does a really good job of helping to spread innovative thinking and design thinking knowledge across the organization.” They accomplish this through a core team of catalysts that help to establish the innovation foundation and educate people across the company. Braden applauds 3M for creating and supporting a culture of experimentation — the % of innovation time approach at Google was first attempted at 3M. Continuous experimentation is a strength of Amazon’s as well. “They run lots of different experiments all the time. They test out all kinds of different things, and they’re good at killing off the things that don’t work or that they don’t think they’re gonna learn anything more from.”

A spirit of experimentation paired with a firm foundation of business goals and metrics is the key ingredients for expanding innovation across an organization. By taking the time to establish a clear purpose and embracing contributions from a variety of roles, organizations can gain an edge in turning inventions into valuable and scalable innovations capable of displacing competitors and improving the lives of their customers.

If you want to read my other articles about innovation experts and practitioners, please check them all out here.

The post Innovation: From Invention to Adoption appeared first on Voltage Control.