Stephen Billing’s Blog

Have you seen this blog post by Tiffany Monhollon called "How to Talk About Change at Work" that recently caught my eye?

For the last five months the author has had what is described as a seismic shift every 30 days. That amounts to five of these seismic shifts in five months. So, lots of change, by any standards.

Tiffany goes on to give a very personalised account of what she has learnt through these frequent and rapid changes in her organisation, and some survival tips that I think are very practical, and revealing of political processes. Essentially Tiffany’s tips amount to "how to be a good management recipient of change."

First of all she suggests figuring out what the change means, and recommends talking to a group of trusted others as a way of working out what it’s all about.

She then suggests finding something positive in the change. If you can’t see the positive immediately, she suggests expecting that there will be something positive that you can’t see yet, so open up the possibility that there will be something positive and keep looking for it. Don’t go to the next step until you can see something positive in the change.

Once you have identified something positive in the change then you can go ahead and find ways to advocate for the change by speaking positively about the change in terms of benefits for the organisation (and if possible, benefits for others). If you can talk positively about the change in this way, your change leader will be very grateful. This might be hard to do, so the author provides some creative ideas for how to do it, concluding that nevertheless it is a worthwhile exercise.

I quote here from Tiffany: "What your leaders need from you during times of change is your ideas, your energy, your solutions. And your advocacy." It strikes me how often the "change leaders" in the "consultation process" do not allow for ideas, energy and solutions because they reduce the feedback process to something written, avoiding opportunities for people to have the kind of discussions that result in new ideas, energy and solutions. They provide a written proposal and ask for written feedback, which is considered (or not) behind a closed door and then the final decisions are announced.

Change leaders in my experience, do want the ideas, energy and solutions of their people. But they are often anxious about whether they will be able to deal with the responses. A lack of experience or expertise in this area leads to over-engineering of the feedback process, resulting in severe restrictions to the scope and benefit of the ideas, energy and solutions of the people.

To summarise, so far you have talked to trusted others to work out what the change means, found something positive about the change, talked about the change with others in a positive way and now can choose your own change.

This means choosing either to stay the same and get swept away by the current of change, or choosing to remain in your organisation and, by implication, allowing the change to shape you. In other words, you have to choose how you will let the organisation’s change shape you. In doing this you can make it your own change, and your own opportunity.

I guess if you can’t follow the above steps then you have to leave and will not survive the change.

This approach speaks to how you have to be to have the greatest chance of surviving change – on the face of it, it seems to be good advice – how to be a good change recipient in a middle management position. If you are in the position of managing other staff then you have to represent the change to those staff in ways that support the organisation even while at the same time wondering if you will have a job yourself. So these steps really reflect that organisational reality in times of change.

Basically, Tiffany is pointing out that to be a good recipient of change you have to be in favour of the change, regardless of any qualms you may have. You cannot afford to express those qualms in open company – rather you have to work through your concerns behind closed doors with trusted others, so that you can emerge and find some way of supporting the change without compromising your ethics.

Underlying this approach is the recognition that those senior people initiating the change have more power than the recipients of change. The most imortant conversations in relation to the change occur behind closed doors with trusted others – these are the conversations in which managers work out what they think the change means and how they will respond – by resigning, by "going through the motions," by "passive resistance," by compliance or by being enthusiastic.

As a person who is often on the project team implementing change, I recognise that these conversations occur outside of the project team’s purview and yet are all important. That is why I think it is important to make the opportunity to have these conversations in the legitimate space rather than driving them into the shadows. For example, providing opportunities for people to talk in small groups with each other and with the senior people about the change and what it entails.