Stephen Billing’s Blog

This article appeared in the December 2009 edition of Changing Organisations: The Newsletter.

Approaching the end of 2009, it is a bit of a shock to realise that this newsletter has also been going nearly a year now! Also, the milestone of finishing my doctoral degree two years ago is starting to retreat into becoming part of the “recent” past rather than the “immediate recent” past.

This year I have learnt a lot from six new clients I’ve not worked with before. Here are eight things I have learnt or had confirmed this year, in no particular order.

1. There are multiple perspectives on any issue. Many times the people involved don’t know what the other perspectives are. Sensitive topics are often discussed only “in the shadows,” i.e. in private settings with certain trusted others. People see the shouting which has a great impact (“unprofessional”), but not the reason for the shouting (e.g. frustration built up over time). They see colleagues seemingly getting away with things, but don’t see the often laborious performance management processes happening (necessarily) in the background. Making these different perspectives known more widely can help people see the situation differently and thus respond differently. This allows the possibility for people to move out of “ruts,” deeply habitual or “stuck” patterns of relating. I have seen many examples this year of how people’s view of the “facts” can change, with discussion, some time to reflect, and further discussion. It seems important to me in organisational change not to close off the opportunity for further discussion, even with someone who seems entrenched, vocal and angry about an issue. (more…)

This article appeared in the November 2009 edition of our monthly newsletter, ChangingOrganisations. Why is it that it is so hard for your people to articulate to you what is actually going on?

In my consulting work I often find that clients who tell me of a problem or issue they want to resolve, often have great difficulty explaining what is going on and what it is that they see as the problem. They know that there is a problem and they know roughly what it is – they definitely know who is involved. It’s just so darned hard to articulate the multitude of factors and the complexity of the problem(s)

The challenge seems to be in explaining the situation to someone who is not intimately involved. At one point I used to think that this meant that the person must be not very competent if they couldn’t describe what’s happening. But then a colleague graciously pointed out that I have the same difficulty in explaining my own practice. I had to admit that there are so many nuances that are difficult to explain, and I started to appreciate that explaining our practice is difficult for everyone. You end up repeating yourself, skirting around the issue and providing a picture that is not very coherent. It becomes like an onion where you are trying to unravel the layers and it makes you cry while you’re doing it, if you’re not careful. (more…)

June’s newsletter is now available – click here to view. The theme this month is Benefiting from Diversity.

Past editions or the newsletter are available here.

This article was published in the Changing Organisations Newsletter ISSN 1174-5576 Num 4: May 2009.

Informal communications – for example gossip over coffee – are what make or break change efforts. A rumour or a concern can so easily be fanned through informal communication into a wildfire of suspicion and resistance. And yet change leaders often concentrate on formal communications (e.g. written) at the expense of informal channels of communications.

My scientific survey tells me that 75% of projects concentrate on formal communications and ignore informal. 75% of change efforts are reputed to fail. You do the maths.

I really think that sponsors of change projects, project managers of change projects, those involved in change project teams and business unit managers have a big problem on their hands.

Even though you may plan the project well, sign off on the risk and issues registers, conduct steering group meetings that are efficient and get through everything on the agenda, deliver the deliverables on time and within budget, and give progress reports to line managers, these are all inputs, not outcomes.

Of most importance to you as a sponsor of a change project are the outcomes. Line managers are most concerned about the impact of the project on their operations and what they will have to do to make it work (i.e. outcomes for their business unit). Project managers and their teams, by contrast, become more concerned about deliverables, which are inputs. Project management structure and planning drives them in this direction – to have all the papers ready for a steering group meeting, for example.

Immediately you can see the dilemma of inputs versus outcomes. Deliverables (a concept invented as a way of measuring progress towards the desired outcomes, i.e. to measure progress of inputs, especially useful for long term projects) include things like project plans, reports on progress, strategy documents, databases, people recruited, leases secured, and equipment purchased. Unfortunately, success in these things is then taken to equate to the success of the project overall.

Project sponsors, through their close alliances with project managers and their teams, also run the risk of being seduced into prioritising deliverables at the expense of outcomes. By contrast, line managers are seldom influenced this way, perhaps because they often don’t develop the same close associations with these project teams.

From a project sponsor’s point of view however, outcomes can only be measured after the change project is implemented. At the same time, project sponsors play a pivotal part in whether the outcomes of the project are achieved or not. They are the ones with relationships with their senior level peers, who secure and commit resources and who provide real world guidance to their project, programme managers and steering groups.

Your project management effectiveness is one component of the solution. And you surely do need good project management, make no mistake. You also need the right mix of technical skills on the team. But good project management and good technical skills are often seen as the whole story. In reality they are only part of the mix. In order to achieve the outcomes you desire, you also need to make sure that the right range of views have been incorporated into the decision making, and that the shadow conversations have been taken into account.

So one thing that you can do as sponsor of a change project is to keep in touch (perhaps informally, and definitely with an open mind) with the line managers. Project managers would also do well to adopt the same approach.

The grave danger I am warning you of, is that initiatives live or die in the shadow conversations – over the coffee machines, in the smoking rooms, in the cafeteria, in the corridors, at staff drinks, around the water cooler. And project sponsors, project managers, project teams, and human resources people, typically do not spend their time in those places. Blinding flash of the obvious – if informal communications are so critical to the success of change initiatives, why are all the communications efforts concentrated solely on the formal communications channels?

No wonder the failure rate for change projects is reputed to be so high.

This article was published in the Changing Organisations Newsletter ISSN 1174-5576 Num 3: April 2009.

As a manager, your business is important to you. You want to make change without your team flipping out. To be effective in making changes to your business, it is important to have effective ways of thinking about your business. No doubt you already consider your targets and goals, staff, budgets, important stakeholders such as customers and funders, and those you yourself report to.

Your business or organisation has certain legal rights like those of a person – the right to own property and other assets, and to enter into contractual commitments. In addition to this, your business is constantly changing. So it is tempting to think of the business as a thing that exists, perhaps a living being, with a heart (or soul) to express the essence of the business (that would be team spirit and cooperation), a brain that thinks for the business (no doubt that would be you, the manager) and hands to get things done (that would be your team).

While your business has these legal rights, it is actually composed of people who have to relate to each other in specific roles that are defined to a greater or lesser degree. And people are not like the heart or brain or hands of a person. Unlike your heart or your hands, people have their own choices, intentions and consciousness, all interacting with the others in your organisation and with customers and other important people like suppliers.

As you will be well aware, you cannot control the people and their interactions in the way that the brain of a person controls the hands, or the way the forces of mechanics control whether a building will stay upright or not. You cannot press a lever and manoeuvre all the people into place like a machine. In reality, it is not actually that helpful to think of your organisation as a thing, a mechanism or a living system. Instead, think of it as patterns of relationships –amongst your staff, customers, suppliers, shareholders, partners and yourself.

These myriad interactions cannot be controlled by any one person and yet they are not random – they have patterns. You cannot play god and design the future interactions that will take place in your organisation. As a human being, even as a powerful senior manager, you can only participate in conversations with others. With this in mind, what is the best way to foster the change you want? Here are three ideas which may seem counter-intuitive.

• Be involved enough to have a great feel for your business so that you are influencing communication – with stakeholders such as customers, funders, suppliers and others. Make sure your managers are doing the same.
   
• At the same time, be detached enough so that you can observe your situation in ways that are congruent with reality. If you are too involved you will miss vital aspects of the world around you. You must be involved and detached at the same time. Your goals and intentions for the future will always guide your participation with others.
   
• Pay attention to how people are responding to you and how they are responding to each other. Discuss what you are noticing with your most trusted team members. It sounds simple, but this is powerful!

The key to change in your organisation is for you to develop your own changed perspectives and insights. The key to changing your own perspective and gaining new insights is listening to your people. And the key to listening is to notice how others are responding to you and how you in turn, are responding to them. Reflect on what you are noticing, and, when you have the opportunity, discuss this with your team and your own boss.  

Picture is Millbrook Resort in Queenstown in Autumn – the changing of the seasons