Rath & Strong Management Consultants

After sixty years of helping our clients achieve break-through change and making it stick, we know first-hand how difficult organizational change is. Our Change Management Architecture ^SM was developed to integrate what we have learned along the way and answer the challenge of change.

Some of the insights we have gained about change are reflected in Rath & Strong's Model of Organizations (See Figure 1). The horizontal boxes depict the Supply Chain from Suppliers through Internal Processes to Customers. It is along this chain that most major organizational change efforts occur. This is where the value-added work and the satisfaction of customers takes place. It is also where the excess inventory and the inefficiencies are. In short, the Supply Chain is where the cash is.

Figure 1 - Rath & Strong's Organization Model

But supply chains always run through an organization or a context, represented in our Model by the vertical boxes of Leadership, (HR Management) Processes and Culture. We have learned that these context variables are critical to any change effort. Think of the five boxes as existing in some kind of gravitational homeostasis. If you try to change one or two elements or their relationship without addressing the others, it is almost guaranteed that the elements you attempted to change will be drawn back to where it was by the other four forces.
 
If the Supply Chain represents where the money is, the context created by Leadership, HR Management Processes and Culture determines if, when and how easy it will be to get that money out and keep it.
 
We have also learned that when change is implemented without preparing properly and considering how all the organizational elements must change, the organization is likely to enter the "Valley of Despair" (See figure 2). The purpose of developing a systematic approach to Change Management is to avoid the Valley of Despair altogether, or, short of that, to minimize the depth of the drop-off and its duration.

Figure 2 - The Challenge of Change

Rath & Strong's Change Management Architecture ^SM

Rath & Strong's Change Management Architecture ^SM offers a way to address the context in which the change is occurring and avoid the Valley of Despair. It pulls together specific tools and a step-by-step approach for assessing, planning and integrating the Technical, Political and Cultural elements of change.
 
The Architecture is based upon our iterative model of change (See Figure 3). Depending on how you think about change, one either begins in the Where Are We? box by thoroughly describing and then facing the reality of the current situation or alternatively, in the Where Are We Going? box creating a vision of a preferred future. How you begin is somewhat a mute point because the second step is the box you didn't begin with. The third step, How Do We Get There? consists of creating detailed plans that address the main elements that need to change as well as the supporting elements. Finally, you must ask How Do We Know If We Are Getting Closer? and answer by showing progress against the balanced scorecard measurement system that has been established.
 
The iterative nature of our model is that we never stop asking those questions until the goal is reached. The current situation is updated as the organization starts to move in the desired direction, the vision is refined and clarified as we move closer to it, plans are modified to meet unexpected demands, and whatever scoreboard we have established is kept front and center to keep us on track and let us know when we need to adjust.

Figure 3 - Rath & Strong's Change Management Model

Where Are We?

The Architecture consists of four sections built around our Change Model. The Where Are We? Section provides specific tools to help assess:

1. Change Readiness
2. Stakeholder Impact/Support
3. Empowerment Metrics
4. Current Measurement Drivers
5. HR Systems Study
6. Change Initiatives Map

Change Readiness. The decision to change is one thing. The readiness to change is something else. The internal barriers that need to be overcome before companies can change are often the reason many change efforts do not succeed. Two surveys are used to assess change readiness: one from a senior management perspective and the other from the perspective of employees.

Stakeholder Impact/Support. Part of shaping the context for change involves understanding how the change impacts where key stakeholders stand on the change. Creating a Stakeholder Impact and Support Map allows you to begin to understand where the major advocacy and resistance will come from.

Empowerment Metric. The complexity of the current competitive environment and the speed with which it changes often forces companies to push decision making authorization and the power to perform lower into the organization. This effort can be facilitated by first calibrating the degree of empowerment that currently exists using Rath & Strong's Organization PrintSM Survey.

Current Measurement Drivers. Significant organization change almost always involves some change to the key measures that Senior Management uses to drive the business. Before new measures can be created, the existing measures that people use to drive the business must be mapped.

HR Systems Study. The current HR Systems are either supporting, neutral or working counter to the change the organization desires to make. Before you can align the HR Systems in support of the effort, one must understand the behavior and kind of culture each system is encouraging. The Architecture provides a series of questions to help you assess if and how the HR Systems will need to change.

Change Initiatives Map. Another factor which makes change so difficult is that often organizations are trying to make several significant changes at once. If the demands form all of these efforts hit at the same time, derailment on one or more of the projects is likely. Further, what can also make matters worse is that the initiatives are sometimes working at cross purposes to one another. To better understand and prepare for these dynamics, the Architecture guides the Change Team through the process of creating a change initiative map. Our clients have found this invaluable in the planning stages.

The Where Are We? section concludes by constructing a composite of what needs to change. By going over all of the various assessments, the Change Team can begin to create a picture of the various elements that will need to change.

Where Are We Going?

The section Where Are We Going consists of tools and other approaches to paint a picture of the preferred future that the organization is trying to move toward. Elements included here are the Common Vision Workshop, Stakeholder Conferences and the Voice of the Customer assessments.

Common Vision Workshop. A positive picture of a preferred future can help provide the energy for change. Rath & Strong's Common Vision Workshop can help senior management teams paint a picture of what the change will mean for the company. The process also helps galvanize a senior team around a compelling picture of the future. Such images are essential when communicating and leading the organization through the often difficult implementation process.

Stakeholder Conferences. A Stakeholder Conference is a three-day event with a large (up to 90) cross-section of key stakeholders including all functions and levels of employees and also customers and suppliers. It is founded on three beliefs: 1) most changes are too complex for one small group or individual to conceive and carry out, 2) implementing change is easier when those most impacted are involved in the design phase, and 3) conflict is best resolved by discovering common ground and not trying to determine who did what to whom.

This diverse group comes together for an intense three days of discussing where the organization has been, the forces that are currently shaping it and where it is going in the future. The conference is very action-oriented and builds a great deal of energy and commitment for change. Quite frankly, it is the fastest way we know to break down the barriers between functions, countries and businesses; melt the resistance to change; and minimize the loss in productivity that accompanies changes of this magnitude.

Voice of the Customer Assessments. The best way to drive change is to let your customers do it. People seem most willing to drop their personal agendas and parochial concerns in the face of the needs of customers. Our Customer Value Profiling SM and Customer Loyalty Assessments allow you to use the voice of the customer to energize the change effort and lower internal barriers to change.

How Do We Get There?

The output from the assessments conducted in the Where Are We? Section and the output from the visioning work form the inputs to the plans in the How Do We Get There Section? (See Figure 4.)

Notes: Communications should be candid, contextual, and consistent across all stakeholders
Uses of Information: Use to assess "How do we know we are getting closer?"

How Do We Get There? presents a step-by-step approach to planning. It helps create and integrate the:

• Project Plan
• Communication Plan
• Organizational Development Plan
• Stakeholder Influence Plan
• Training Plan

Project Plan. The Project Plan consists of the primary elements that are changing. In a Supply Chain Management project, this might consist of installing new IT and communications technology to integrate more closely with suppliers and customers, shop floor redesign to establish "pull systems" and increase manufacturing capacity, and business teams to improve the value being provided to customers.

Organizational Development Plan. The Organizational Development Plan outlines those efforts needed at the Leadership, (Human Resource Management) Processes and Cultural levels to make sure people understand the rational for change and have the knowledge and skills to make the switch. The OD Plan specifies the timing for certain training, communications, meetings, team building, personal feedback, climate assessments, reward and recognition programs, etc. In practice, we often combine the Project Plan and the Organizational Development Plan into one Gantt Chart with different colors for the Project elements and the OD elements to show how the OD elements are aligned in support of the primary changes.

Stakeholder Influence Plan. The Stakeholder Influence Plan specifies the concerns and issues of each stakeholder, as well as the influence strategy and who has the primary responsibility.

Communication Plan. The outline for the segmented Communication Plan is shown in Figure 4. It segments communication around key stakeholder groups and specifies what the messages are and the spokespeople who are responsible for delivering those messages.

Training Plan. The outline for the Training Plan helps the Change Team think through what new knowledge, skills and abilities will be necessary to support the change and operate in the New World.

How Do We Know We Are Getting Closer?

The final section helps establish new measures, provides a way to track progress and helps with contingency planning around the major derailers of organizational change. We use a Balanced Scorecard (see Figure 5) perspective to help stimulate thinking about new measures which can be used to drive the business.

Figure 5 - How Do We Know We Are Getting Closer?

Based on our experience implementing large scale organizational change, we have developed a list of Change Derailers that are used in the Architecture to build contingency plans. These help keep the project from getting blind-sided during implementation by one of the derailers. A partial list of derailers includes:

• Lack of Accountability
• Loss of a Champion
• Placing Status Quo Thinkers on the Change Team
• Failure to Deliver Early Tangible Results
• Failure to Connect the Dots

As mentioned earlier, the Change Team continues to iterate their way through the four stages until the changes have been implemented and taken root.

Conclusion

On a good day, organizational change is incredibly difficult. The forces conspiring to derail your change effort always seem to outnumber the forces on your side. Rath & Strong's Change Management Architecture ^SM  is a resource for evening the score and will help assure your change goals are achieved faster and more economically.

For information about how Rath & Strong can help you face your change challenge or information about licensing opportunities, contact us at 781-861-1700.

About Rath & Strong...

Rath & Strong is a management consulting firm headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts. Founded in 1935, Rath & Strong helps clients achieve desired change by providing consulting services in four main areas: process and operations management, organization development, counsel to leaders, and customer connection. The firm specializes in helping clients address issues relating to these four areas simultaneously from a systems perspective.