A need for change that you had anticipated now looks certain to arrive. You have already analysed the situation and identified exactly where your organisation’s structure, culture and leadership needs to be at for it to be successful, and are now facing the task of implementing these changes effectively. For this scenario, we present to you our four golden rules for implementing change successfully.
Effective decisions require data that you can use to make sound assessments and judgments. Often you can conclude on data yourself but sometimes it is important to get help from an expert. Balancing facts with your perceptions, to make objective decisions based on the most relevant possible data, is never easy. Even if avoiding personality derived preferences, existing group behaviours, flawed data skewed by reporting issues (and not real organisational problems) are obvious risks to write about, they are hard to avoid in practice.
The most relevant and up to date data on your organisation’s market context, structure, culture and leadership – objectively assessed – will form a compelling and logical chain of arguments for change. It will also scrutinise if a change is even needed – perhaps you have the right organisation set up already, but with the wrong leadership capabilities? Only by getting the analysis right, will leaders know precisely what to change, how much to change and how fast. Be guided by relevant data (only).
To successfully adapt through periods of accelerated change, your leaders need to create a clear framework to measure your organisation more frequently. The most effective measurement approach will help you to the right analysis and regulate implementation speed, act as a communication tool and allow for both focus and course correction as needed. If the change you need seems hard to measure, it is even more important to find a way. It’s time for leaders to think deeper about measurement methods and priorities. Measuring both leading indicators (that predict what might happen) as well as economic outputs (that ultimately prove success but may indicate a problem too late) is important. However, the commonly used structure for measuring strategy implementation – the balanced scorecard – needs careful design if implementation of change is to be measured more frequently. In rethinking what you measure in times of accelerated change, take care not to skew measures too much towards the economic – in most organisations, these lagging indicators are already well reported. Your leaders purpose in this setting is rather to measure the implementation of change and find reliable and stable measurements that look forward – measures that will prognose future results in the four key areas:
Whatever change you need, start with a clear picture of the new ways – and some old methods – that you will use to measure progress effectively. The next normal requires a new balance to leader’s scorecards. More forward looking, and most importantly – as change is a process not an event, and as events turn faster - measure more frequently than before, or better still, measure continuously.
Rather than an overarching strategic refresh to cope with new conditions, consider how to develop your organisation in singular and narrower focussed sprints. Do one thing at a time, quickly and for long enough that predictive measures indicate accomplishment – before taking more on. Your team’s capacity to accept, adopt and succeed with change will be your limiting factor:
In change the solution must obviously match the need – but just because change is needed does not mean it’s the most important thing to act on. Think with care, and think continuously, about how much your people can absorb. Then put all you focus, most powerful resources and leadership effort into changing the fewest things that matter most. To achieve more, help leaders cut through the complexity, and do much less, better.
Your leaders have an existing organisation to protect, nurture and develop whilst they build new capabilities for the future and make change happen. It’s a demanding task that underlines for itself why this implementation phase is the normal failure point in change. Right organisation and strategy, wrong leaders.
So, when you know what organisation you need and how to measure it, and the change you will bring in is focussed, you are still only halfway to success – having effective leaders will now determine success. Leaders with the right capabilities won’t be derailed. They will take care of your people and ensure what needs to be achieved is realised. And as the change you implement changes the work context for leader and colleagues alike, it’s necessary to look afresh to predict if the leaders you have will succeed in their new task.
Making sure you have the most effective leaders in place, for a future that has yet to unfold, requires a solid prediction about what is required and who is able. To outperform, select and re-select the most able leaders, continuously.