Data is king. This is especially in current times of uncertainty. With data comes power, influence and outcomes. Lots of disciplines have leveraged the power of data to drive better outcomes. Marketers would not dream of doing any part of their job without data. Operations is driven by data in all aspects of managing the business. Even Human Resources is heavily focused on numbers, pay and benefits, employee sizes and structures, cultural measurements and employee sentiment trends.
For change management data must also be the core pillar that drives our work.
Unfortunately for a lot of practitioners the only data used tends to be sizing number of people impacted, counting the number of people being trained, training evaluation scores or change readiness sentiment surveys.
Surely, there is more we can do to adopt a more data-driven change approach?
Absolutely! Stay tuned for our upcoming article on how to do this.
In the meantime, here is an infographic on painting a picture of what a data-driven change environment looks like.
There are 8 core components:
Focus on capturing initiative and portoflio-wide data
Data-driven change approach throughout project phases
Take user/business centric versus project centric view
Investing in data insight capability building
Leader sponsorhip in data-led investment and focus
Collaboration/Openness to share data
Using data in routine business/project meetings
Incorporate data governance within roles and responsibilities
The past 1.5 years has been super challenging for most organisations. The constant stop and start interruptions of Covid has taken a toll on most employees. One minute we are going back to work the next minute we are not. One minute we have Covid cases under control, the next minute infection rates are out of control.
However, corporate initiatives are not in any way slowed down by Covid. If anything there is more organisational change resulting from Covid. Covid has not only resulted in ways of working changes, but also deep industry, economy, consumer and technology changes.
Now that most economies are starting to come out of lockdowns and opening up, what does this mean for initiatives? Well, amidst the atmosphere of the emotional and psycho-social turmoil that has been the journey for most employees as a result of COVID, the most important change approach can be summarised by one word ….
OPTIMISM
Why is it important to incorporate a sense of optimism within every change initiative?
After more than a year of being isolated and experiencing the various disruptions of not being able to have a normal life of shopping, visiting friends and travelling, we need to acknowledge and reset the mood. How we approach work is indeed affected by the overall mood around us. Resetting the mood and instilling a sense of positivity and optimism is absolutely critical.
Without optimism, employees may still be harbouring the lingering mood of dealing with Covid. Negativity will never help to transition people during the change process. It is hope and optimism that will carry energy and excitement which will then drive action.
Think of the last time you were feeling down and weary. What were some of your behaviours? Typical behaviours when you’re feeling down in the dumps include not connecting with family and friends, being socially withdrawn, disruptions in sleep, being less physically active, etc. You were also more likely to think negatively, such as “things won’t get better”, “there’s no point trying”, “might as well not try”. These are definitely not the thoughts and behaviours that will help people transition during the change process.
So how do we instil a sense of optimism within our change initiatives?
1. Celebrate the ‘return to normal’ (whatever normal looks like!). As companies start to gradually have employees return to work, initiatives must also support this by creating a sense of excitement and positivity. Think of approaches such as:
Uplifting speeches by leaders
Gift objects such as cupcakes and drinks as a part of the celebration theme
Online events promoting positive discussions and sharing
Social events fostering activity and excitement
2. Highlight new ideas and approaches to the initiative. To demonstrate that things are no longer just ‘ho-hum’ as was the case during Covid, adopt new engagement and communication approaches to liven up the initiative. Even better, ask impacted stakeholders to come up with bright ideas of how to generate a renewed sense of optimism
3. Leverage the power of communication to impart excitement and positivity. Incorporate bright and colourful images, quotes and graphic themes to instil positive energy.
4. Display consistent behaviour. There is nothing worse than having positive themes throughout, only to have initiative leads speak with monotone voice supplemented by lethargic behaviour. We are social animals. We can ‘smell’ low energy. You may need to proactive coach your leaders to ensure that they are displaying the right behaviours across all modalities …. The tone of voice, gestures, responses, reactions, etc. All aspects of behaviour can impart mood. And your job is to design and shape them to be one that is more positive.
Adopting a behavioural science approach to managing change means leveraging scientific research about human behaviours and using this to better manage change. A lot of the common practices in change management are not always based on scientific research. What is assumed as common change approaches may in fact not be substantiated by research and data.
We talk to an industry veteran of behavioural science, Tony Salvador. Tony has 30+ years of research background behind him and a long-time ex-Inteller and Senior Fellow. At Intel, Tony travelled around the globe researching human factors and how people behave with technology.
There are many valuable takeaways for the change practitioner.
Some of these include:
Engineering psychology and human centric design
Analogy of pickaxe and the change approach
Principle of aversion to loss
People involvement and transactional change
Determining the nature of leadership relationship with employees
Story telling and insight into change culture
Example of Brazilian translator and people’s stories
Power of observation and listening
The nature of relationships and how they determine change
Change rationale in weaving in multiple changes
Involving people in reporting to achieve authenticity
Building the case and involving employees to derive case for change
Research on aversion to loss can explain why people don’t want to change. I spoke with senior fellow, anthropologist and ex-Inteller Tony Salvador.
It sounds completely illogical but true ….
People would be more concerned about losing something than gaining something. They would rather not lose $2 than to gain $5 for example.
This plays out in various facets of how people make decisions about choices … including in a change context.
This is just one of the many things I spoke with Tony Salvador about.
Lots of golden nuggets of wisdom takeaways for change practitioners from the man who spent 30+ years working for Intel researching about people behaviour and how they operate in social and technological environments.
Traditionally in change management, there are key ‘events’ that we pin our change strategy on when it comes to getting users to use a new system. These include town halls, leader-led team sessions, and training sessions. We anticipate that after these events that users will come onboard and that all is well. After this we can leave the user and our job is completed.
Unfortunately this is not the case.
User communication and training are only a few steps along a process where many other steps need to occur to achieve the ultimate outcome of full user adoption. We need to look holistically at the whole system and the various players that contribute to the users’ full adoption.
These include:
User capability
User motivation
User capacity
Senior manager buy-in
Manager buy-in
Communication and awareness
Measurement and reinforcement
Strategic alignment
So you can see that all of these are examples of potential levers that need to be pulled to get the outcome.
Here is an example of the initial onboarding journey for The Change Compass. What onboarding journey do you use?
