“John Kotter suggests that for change to be successful, 75% of a company's management needs to "buy into" the change. So for change to happen there needs to be a shared a sense of urgency around the need for change.
And this will result from honest and open dialogue with your people about what's happening in your market and with your competition. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself.
To lead change, you need to bring together a coalition, or team, of influential people whose power comes from a variety of sources, including job title, status, expertise, and political importance.
You can find effective change leaders at all levels within your organization - they don't necessarily follow the traditional company hierarchy. It is important to get an emotional commitment from these key people as you build a team to support your change initiative.”
The above excerpt is taken from John Kotter, as stated, an expert on change management. Nothing stated above is particularly new. I was learning these same basic principles in 1998 when I worked in management for Chorus Communications LTD, a telecommunications provider here in Wisconsin. At the time, I was being taught by representatives of Peoplesoft and other customer relationship management software providers who understood the complexities in rolling out fundamental tools and business practice changes to large, diverse organizations.
The underlying message to all of it was simple: You cannot hand down effective large scale changes from the top. People will pretend to go along, but will ultimately resist, resent, and cling to old ways with which they are comfortable and familiar. Managing change involves establishing a dialogue with the affected people and getting them involved in the process. Only when product or process users throughout the hierarchy are involved in implementing and teaching the change do they claim a part of that change as their own and truly adopt the new methods required of them.
Governor Walker could perhaps have used a few conversations with John Kotter or any of the very companies he hopes to help during his administration. No matter what side of the issue you are on with the Wisconsin labor protests, if you step back and take a look at how the Governor moved proposed changes through the process, you can see why the chaos and rising tide against his administration is a demon of his own creation.
Without warning, Governor Walker shut down any negotiations about the budget or unions and drew up a massive piece of legislation consisting of fundamental changes to how Wisconsin interacts with it's Union workforce of over 50 years. He set it on the fast track - a blazing 5 days from proposal to passage with only a single day of public hearings in committee while launching an ad campaign against the unions throughout the state via the Koch brother's PACs.
Hmm.
As I read the change management points above, I'm not tracking with the whole 'honest and open dialogue with your competition.' or the bringing together of variety of influential people involved. The behavior above is nearly a textbook example of what NOT to do in complex change situation. It's the kind of thing I would have expected to see in a cheesy video by Peoplesoft showing a failed effort to switch enterprise software providers.
There's good common sense reason behind these change management tactics. No matter how much you think you know how your business works or what's involved in getting things done, the truth is that a majority of the expertise lies on the front lines. So change management must involve the people doing the work. It allows the people in charge of the change to better understand what needs to happen;The learning process goes both ways. So while employees and workers develop a sense of belonging to the overall project by contributing to it, the employer or manager learns about the difference between the theory of change they want to put in place and the real, concrete challenges that must be overcome as expressed by those already doing the job.
Dialogue.
This blog started because I was concerned about death of political conversation in this country. I wanted to get both sides talking again and listening to each other. Somewhere along the road, however, the consequence of NOT talking to each other came home to roost right on my doorstep. Madison is now the battleground between a man who thought himself a king and a workforce who thought themselves more than royal subjects.
Whatever you think about who is right or wrong, you have to at least shake your head and wonder how man who champions American business could be so blind to the fundamental truths of how to bring about profitable change in an organization.
This budget repair bill's execution was a total disaster, bordering on genuine incompetence. Basic change management strategy is not high-minded academic theory, it's common sense and has been around for decades in all kinds of business. The fact that the man in charge of the State has mismanaged that change so horribly so as to nearly shut down the State government should give the most staunch conservative pause about what lies ahead.
And this will result from honest and open dialogue with your people about what's happening in your market and with your competition. If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself.
To lead change, you need to bring together a coalition, or team, of influential people whose power comes from a variety of sources, including job title, status, expertise, and political importance.
You can find effective change leaders at all levels within your organization - they don't necessarily follow the traditional company hierarchy. It is important to get an emotional commitment from these key people as you build a team to support your change initiative.”
The above excerpt is taken from John Kotter, as stated, an expert on change management. Nothing stated above is particularly new. I was learning these same basic principles in 1998 when I worked in management for Chorus Communications LTD, a telecommunications provider here in Wisconsin. At the time, I was being taught by representatives of Peoplesoft and other customer relationship management software providers who understood the complexities in rolling out fundamental tools and business practice changes to large, diverse organizations.
The underlying message to all of it was simple: You cannot hand down effective large scale changes from the top. People will pretend to go along, but will ultimately resist, resent, and cling to old ways with which they are comfortable and familiar. Managing change involves establishing a dialogue with the affected people and getting them involved in the process. Only when product or process users throughout the hierarchy are involved in implementing and teaching the change do they claim a part of that change as their own and truly adopt the new methods required of them.
Governor Walker could perhaps have used a few conversations with John Kotter or any of the very companies he hopes to help during his administration. No matter what side of the issue you are on with the Wisconsin labor protests, if you step back and take a look at how the Governor moved proposed changes through the process, you can see why the chaos and rising tide against his administration is a demon of his own creation.
Without warning, Governor Walker shut down any negotiations about the budget or unions and drew up a massive piece of legislation consisting of fundamental changes to how Wisconsin interacts with it's Union workforce of over 50 years. He set it on the fast track - a blazing 5 days from proposal to passage with only a single day of public hearings in committee while launching an ad campaign against the unions throughout the state via the Koch brother's PACs.
Hmm.
As I read the change management points above, I'm not tracking with the whole 'honest and open dialogue with your competition.' or the bringing together of variety of influential people involved. The behavior above is nearly a textbook example of what NOT to do in complex change situation. It's the kind of thing I would have expected to see in a cheesy video by Peoplesoft showing a failed effort to switch enterprise software providers.
There's good common sense reason behind these change management tactics. No matter how much you think you know how your business works or what's involved in getting things done, the truth is that a majority of the expertise lies on the front lines. So change management must involve the people doing the work. It allows the people in charge of the change to better understand what needs to happen;The learning process goes both ways. So while employees and workers develop a sense of belonging to the overall project by contributing to it, the employer or manager learns about the difference between the theory of change they want to put in place and the real, concrete challenges that must be overcome as expressed by those already doing the job.
Dialogue.
This blog started because I was concerned about death of political conversation in this country. I wanted to get both sides talking again and listening to each other. Somewhere along the road, however, the consequence of NOT talking to each other came home to roost right on my doorstep. Madison is now the battleground between a man who thought himself a king and a workforce who thought themselves more than royal subjects.
Whatever you think about who is right or wrong, you have to at least shake your head and wonder how man who champions American business could be so blind to the fundamental truths of how to bring about profitable change in an organization.
This budget repair bill's execution was a total disaster, bordering on genuine incompetence. Basic change management strategy is not high-minded academic theory, it's common sense and has been around for decades in all kinds of business. The fact that the man in charge of the State has mismanaged that change so horribly so as to nearly shut down the State government should give the most staunch conservative pause about what lies ahead.
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