FREE online courses on Change Management - Change Management - Four Basic
Strategies - One More Time - How do you manage change
The honest answer is that you manage it pretty much the same
way you'd manage anything else of a turbulent, messy, chaotic nature, that is,
you don't really manage it, you grapple with it. It's more a matter of
leadership ability than management skill.
The first thing to do is jump in. You can't do anything about
it from the outside.
A clear sense of mission or purpose is essential. The simpler
the mission statement the better. “Kick ass in the marketplace” is a whole lot
more meaningful than “Respond to market needs with a range of products and
services that have been carefully designed and developed to compare so favorably
in our customers' eyes with the products and services offered by our competitors
that the majority of buying decisions will be made in our favor.”
Build a team. “Lone wolves” have their uses, but managing
change isn't one of them. On the other hand, the right kind of lone wolf makes
an excellent temporary team leader.
Maintain a flat organizational team structure and rely on
minimal and informal reporting requirements.
Pick people with relevant skills and high energy levels.
You'll need both.
Toss out the rule book. Change, by definition, calls for a
configured response, not adherence to prefigured routines.
Shift to an action-feedback model. Plan and act in short
intervals. Do your analysis on the fly. No lengthy up-front studies, please.
Remember the hare and the tortoise.
Set flexible priorities. You must have the ability to drop
what you're doing and tend to something more important.
Treat everything as a temporary measure. Don't “lock in”
until the last minute, and then insist on the right to change your mind.
Ask for volunteers. You'll be surprised at who shows up.
You'll be pleasantly surprised by what they can do.
Find a good “straw boss” or team leader and stay out of his
or her way.
Give the team members whatever they ask for - except
authority. They'll generally ask only for what they really need in the way of
resources. If they start asking for authority, that's a signal they're headed
toward some kind of power-based confrontation and that spells trouble.
Concentrate dispersed knowledge. Start and maintain an issues
logbook. Let anyone go anywhere and talk to anyone about anything. Keep the
communications barriers low, widely spaced, and easily hurdled. Initially, if
things look chaotic, relax - they are.
Remember, the task of change management is to bring order to
a messy situation, not pretend that it's already well-organized and disciplined.
