Effective Change Management

Successful Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma or any Operational Excellence initiative cannot be achieved without effective Change Management.  In today’s fast-paced environment where businesses are conducted “at the speed of thought’ (as Bill Gates once observed), change is often met with much resistance from employees.  According to the book Beyond the Wall of Resistance by Rick Maurer, 70% of organisational change attempts fail.

Why is there such a high failure rate for organisational change efforts and what can organisations do to avoid it? The key reasons are discussed below:

Lack of Communication

While management will communicate what the change is or what it should look like, they often fail to communicate why the change is needed. The number 1 reason why organisational change fails is because the case for making a change is not adequately articulated to employees, and hence, is never fully embraced. In fact, a recent study found that only 40% of front-line supervisors felt they were “getting the message” about the reasons behind major organisational shake-ups, which means that the other 60% of employees are in the dark.

If management articulates a clear, positive vision for the future and explain why that change is necessary, the chances are much higher that the desired change will be embraced.

Poor Planning

Implementing any change in the organisation requires careful thinking and planning. If the change is entered into too hastily or without any proper planning, a likely outcome will be a false start, resistance, and most likely eventual failure.

Differing Agendas

Employees may resist change due to ego and self-interest. Without fully understanding why a change is needed, some employees may feel threatened by it and will resist it out of perceived self-interest.

Employees who feel alienated or excluded may also resist change. If, for example, the change is a top-down dictate where they had no real chance to give their input, the result will likely be employees who do not own the change and therefore resist it.

Lack of Leadership

It is necessary for management to create an atmosphere where employees buy into the new corporate vision. But if employees feel alienated or otherwise do not trust the management, getting them to buy into any new direction will be quite difficult.

Lack of Commitment

If organisations really want to create a change, the leadership has to be 100% committed. Once the leadership is fully committed, the same commitment should be expected of everyone in organisation. The desired change must be considered a rule and not an option.

Poor Processes

Success requires that organisations give their employees a means and process for implementing the desired change, otherwise their natural reaction to resist change will persist.

As author Rick Maurer put it, most people react to change by putting up a wall of protection. It is the responsibility of the leader in an organisation to engage with those people so they truly understand why the change is needed.

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Change Management Process

One of the key challenges in any Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma or Operational Excellence programmes is the resistance to change.

In today’s fast changing environment, change is an inevitable part of business. While some are able to deal with change easily, for others, it can be a more difficult process to deal with. In fact, some employees may resist the process, and their resistance to the change process can have negative effects for the organisation or business. If these negative effects are not addressed in a timely manner, they can become widespread and affect the morale of the staff. Understanding the negative effects of resistance to change in your organisation is the first step.

Lower Employee Morale

When employees resist a change taking place at work, they may feel less optimistic and hopeful about their professional future with the organisation. This is particularly so if there is a lack of communication regarding the change. Among other negative effects of resistance to change, lowered morale can spread throughout the entire staff, which can in turn lead to staff recruiting and retention issues.

Reduced Efficiency

A negative effect that results from employees spending time focusing on resisting the changes in the workplace is that they become less focused on performing the daily tasks required from their jobs. This can lead to a reduced level of efficiency and output among employees, which can be damaging to the organisation’s bottom line.

Disruptive Work Environment

Another negative effect to resistance among employees to changes is a more disruptive work environment. Employees resisting changes may have conflicts with management staff over the changes. They may spread the same negativity among their co-workers, encouraging them to act in a similar manner, which in turn causes greater unrest among staff.

Mitigating the Negative Effects

There are numerous ways organisations can mitigate the negative effects of resistance to change among employees. This can range from holding meetings and discussions with employees which allow them to air their grievances regarding the changes, to providing additional training and resources to help employees to cope and adapt. Taking the steps to make employees feel more comfortable with changes will go a long way toward creating more positive and beneficial effects from change than negative ones.

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Deming

14 Points For Management

Dr Edwards Deming was the pioneer in the development of process control, quality and productivity improvement in Japan.  This eventually led to the development of Kaizen / Toyota Production System / Lean.  His renowned 14 points are still applicable in the present day in the implementation of any Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma or Operational Excellence initiative.  These timeless wisdom are the essential foundation in the implementation of a sustainable Continuous Improvement culture.

Below is a condensation of the 14 points:

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of the price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of an overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the workforce asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the workforce.
11. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
12. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in the engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, the abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job.

  (Sources:

1. Out of the Crisis by Dr W. Edwards Deming
2. https://deming.org/management-system/fourteenpoints )

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