From my practice when we faced a challenging situation at work than we used Ed Muzio's approach. It has 7 steps of problem solving. The first step is definition. Definition asks the question what is the problem really. Until you that you can't go any further. The second step is data collection. Data collection answers questions what is going on. Step three is cause analysis. This answers questions why what's going on here. Step four is solution planning. That is a lot of work. This can take quite some time to plant a solution well and to implement it. It's worth the effort. Step five is evaluation of efforts. The question here is did it work. Is our solution work or we are still not done. Step six is standartization. The idea of standartization is we have gone through a lot of work to get the solution. Let's see how widely we can use it in the organization. Step 7 is evaluation of whole process. The idea here is to learn something based on the work we have done. Batkhuyag Naigal, Ph.D.
How To Use Structured Problem Solving
If everything worked smoothly in your work, there would be no need to keep you on the payroll. Even if you did stay, your daily work would quickly become boring. Facing new challenges prompts us to grow and develop new skills. To use an athletic analogy, you don’t build endurance until you push yourself to work harder. This multi-step process is a proven method to get work through challenging problems.
When Should I Use Structured Problem Solving?
It is important to use the right tool for the task at hand. This is a powerful method that takes some time to plan and use. As a result, it only makes sense to use it on medium or large problems. If you are facing a minor computer glitch, simply restarting your computer will solve 95% of such problems. If you are facing a problem with a multi-million dollar project, this process makes sense to use. Finally, this process is useful to apply when you are facing an unfamiliar or frustrating problem.
Why Should I Use Structured Problem Solving?
Using a disciplined problem solving metod is useful in several circumstances. Consider using this process when are facing a situation that meets some or all of the criteria below:
New Problems. If you face a new problem that initially baffles you and defies solution, look into using a structured process to address the situation.
Stressful Problems. Certain problems – such as those involving weak skills or difficult people – trigger stress feelings. Emotion does help in motivating you to act. Unfortunately, emotion does not tend to generate specific solutions.
High Risk Problem. High risk problems have the potential to cause significant damage to your organization and career if you do not take action.
Priority Impact. If a given problem directly undermines your ability to achieve success on a priority goal, then it makes sense to apply some additional resources on solving the problem.
Ultimately, you will have to use your professional judgement to decide whether and how to apply this scenario. If you are just getting started with this process, I suggest using it on a small problem first. That way, you can build confidence in using the strategy.
The 6 Step Process For Problem Solving
Use these steps in sequential order to gain the best results in solving complex and important problems.
Step 1: Identify the problem
At this stage, you are defining the scope of the problem you have to solve. Points to consider at this stage include: problem origin (if known), problem impact (e.g. on customers, on staff or reputation) and timeline to solve the problem.
Example: “Three important vendors for next week’s conference have failed to meet several milestones defined by the contract. Vendor non-performance will result in conference attendee complaints and reputational damage.”
Note: the time factor is important to consider because it influences how much time you can dedicate to thinking through the problem. In extreme conditions, you may run through this entire process in less than an hour.
2. Structure the problem
Putting the problem into a clear structure for analysis is one of the great insights that consultants and MBA graduates bring to their work. What does it mean to structure a problem? It means identifying the important issues.
Example: Vendor non-performance in this case has the following points. First, there is a contract aspect to the problem. Second, there is a problem relating to our oversight and monitoring over the vendor. Third, this problem has an impact to the attendee experience.
Popular structures to use include Porter’s five forces model, connecting the problem to company goals or connecting the problem to a balanced scorecard.
3. Develop solutions
According to research by Chip and Dan Heath in their book “Decisive,” most managers develop only two solutions: “Do x or do not do X.” It will come as no surprise that this approach rarely delivers success. Binary choices tend to have a 50% or greater failure rate. On the other hand, fifty solutions is probably too many to handle especially if you are working through a problem solving process on your own.
The Solution Sweet Spot: developing three to five solutions is usually enough according to business consultant and author Michael Bungay Stanier.
To return to our vendor scenario, here are five solutions one might consider:
Hire a new vendor to deliver.
Enforce contract penalties for non-performance.
Escalate the issue to a higher level (e.g. your executive calls the executive at the vendor) to discuss the situation.
Implement new milestones with daily status reporting.
Cancel the event if there is no way to produce a quality outcome according to schedule.
4. Select a solution to the problem
With a list of possible solutions on the table, it is now time to decide. If you face a personal problem or one that only impacts your work, choosing the option that strikes you as best is enough. In other situations, use a scoring process.
In our conference example, your decision criteria could be: cost, quality and reputation. Writing up a few notes to explain your decision is helpful if you need to convince something else to support your decision.
Example: I recommend hiring another vendor to complete the printing because we have a list of three backup vendors and the additional cost is within our planned budget.
Note: For large scale problem solving, you may have to follow an organizational template or policy if your solution requires a large amount of money.
5. Implement a solution
In this step, you put the solution into action. Implementation may become a project of its own. In that case, you have a full toolkit of project management tools and processes to call on.
Tip: If you are solving a novel problem, stay humble about your solution. It may not work or there may be a better way.
6. Monitor for success
Monitoring the solution and situation is a key step to ensure the problem is truly solved. Failing to follow up – especially if you have assigned the task to someone else – is a recipe for disaster. Monitoring is also important because problems are sometimes symptom of a deeper problem.
Tip: Increase the quantity and frequency of reporting when you are working through an important problem. In the conference example, you may ask for daily progress reports if the conference is ten days away.
Further Resources For Problem Solving
Consultants, authors and other professionals have done great work in creating tools and methods for business problem solving. In this section, you will find a few resources to continue your problem solving education.
McKinsey & Company Case Interviews. The global consulting firm provides business cases and other resources to assist job applicants seeking a role at the firm. Take a look at the practice problem solving tests to refine your skills.
CasePlace.org. Created by The Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, Case Place is a rich resource of case studies on a variety of organizations. Of special note: users can find cases by business discipline such as accounting, law and operations.
Are You Solving the Right Problem?. This Harvard Business Review article points out that problems vary in value. You may face several problems on any given day – choosing the right problem to work through matters.
After spending so much time on getting your website right, you’re probably noticing a steady stream of traffic each day. The problem is, none of your visitors are purchasing anything or doing the things you want them to do, but they keep churning in, so what’s going wrong?
Conversion rate can be summed up as the amount of visitors landing on your website that complete a particular action. E.g. purchase an item, click a button, sign up to a newsletter, etc. Depending on your type of business, your conversion rate will be different. If you own an eCommerce company, your end goal will be to convert website visitors to purchasing something from your store.
There’s no doubt that conversion rate optimization is a tricky concept to get your head around, which is why we’ve put together a list of interesting facts, statistics, and tips to help increase your website’s conversion rates.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rates are used within companies and marketing teams to determine the effectiveness of their websites and eCommerce stores. Conversion rates are key in predicting growth but aren’t always easy to achieve.
Globally, 3.63% of conversion rates to add-to-basket or to cart are performed on a desktop computer
Only 1.25% are using a smartphone when converting
In the UK, 5.15% are using a desktop computer, whereas 2.52% are using their mobile phone, around 50% difference
20.2% of mobile phone users confirmed they had security concerns when purchasing online using a smartphone
19.3% said they found navigating an online store from their mobile phone too difficult
4.29% average order conversion rate was obtained through email, proving to be the highest converting channel
Only 1.81% convert via social media, however, more than 80% of users are browsing social media sites on their smartphone
Content marketing is the most popular marketing technique in 2018, with 20% of marketers choosing this as their most effective marketing activity
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data are the second most effective marketing techniques with 14% of marketers
eCommerce
Unfortunately conversion doesn’t just happen, depending on your target market, you need to optimise for it. For eCommerce businesses, your main focus will be converting visitors on your website to sales. Other conversion rates could include items added to cart, items added to wish lists, email subscribers, and social media sharing.
eCommerce businesses can expect an average shopper conversion of around 2.95% worldwide
The most popular product sold on the internet, based on conversion rate, is electronics with a conversion rate of around 23%
Just over 50% of internet users search for product or service related videos before visiting or purchasing from an online store
eCommerce shoppers who view video content are nearly 2 times more likely to purchase than those who haven’t viewed a video
64.6% of internet users will click on Google ads when they are searching for an item to buy online
34% of online retail purchases occur on mobile and smart devices
Lead Generation
Customer journeys are no longer as simple as they used to be, with the boom of mobile phones, tablets, and smart devices. Where it used to be a case that companies could cast a generic net over their target audience, marketing strategies have adapted and taken on a more nurturing form.
93% of B2B companies rely on content marketing to generate more leads compared to other marketing methods
96% of website visitors aren’t ready to buy, but can be converted with a solid strategy
In the B2B market, 68% of companies take the opportunity to use landing pages in order to generate leads
For the B2B companies, those who generate blog posts more than 11 times per month can obtain 4 times the amount of leads as those blogging only 4 times per month
Conversion Rate Tips
Create a sense of urgency: Did you know that creating a sense of urgency around your call to action (CTA) buttons can result in higher conversions? A case study showed a 3.5% conversion rate increased to 10% after the introduction of a countdown timer.
Live chat: Customers in 2018 are impatient; we want information and we want it now. Studies have shown that adding a live chat feature to a company website can increase sign ups by 31%.
Relevant headline: When visiting your websites, customers are going to notice your site’s headline before anything else, so what you write must be engaging and relevant. A company called Movexa added a single word to their headline, improving conversion rates by 89.97%.
Trust and awards: Whether your company is receiving great reviews from trust pilot, has a food health and safety certificate, or has won an award, it’s important to show this off. A case study showed after adding a ‘guarantee’ badge to their website, they experienced a 32% increase in conversions.
Free returns: As a consumer, we put our trust in sellers and suppliers to provide us with the right goods and services. However, sometimes we aren’t satisfied with what we’ve received and want to return it. What better way to get your customer to convert than to offer free returns? 82% of study respondents said they would purchase an item if it offered a free returns policy.
Videos: Video has become the king of content, attracting a wider range of consumers to purchase from providers who offer video tutorials, brand stories, and more. A case study showed that the introduction of a video on their website’s landing page increased their leads by 16.4%.
In today’s age, Business Analyst has become a key role in an IT or any other Organization. But as a BA he should not be confined to limited skills. Though he is not responsible, then also he should have working knowledge on each and every process that happens in a project life cycle.
It is all about differentiating from others with the advanced skill set which will make an employee irreplaceable in an organization. So as a BA, he should be equipped with the most advanced skills present in the industry. Out of my experience, I have tried to list out all in the form of a diagram being displayed below.
BA Skill Set
Planning Skills for a Business Analyst
Many people do not understand that business analysis work involves a lot more than just “gathering” the requirements. In addition to requirements gathering skill, a BA should have a structured plan and approach to elicit, analyze, document, review and validate system requirements.
Stakeholder Analysis and Communication Planning are the two of most important tasks that a BA should be well versed with. These two items are mostly related to the planning activities of BA. BA should be able to showcase the plan containing the achievable milestones to all the stakeholders of the Project.
Business analysis planning should be done for every project but it doesn’t have to be an enormous, time consuming process. Many of the planning tasks can be finished very swiftly, while some tasks may require a little research and analysis.
The following process map depicts the Business Analyst Planning Skills.
Having a strong, experienced Project Manager and an efficient, knowledgeable Business Analyst in a Project, is the best way to assure its Success. Both roles are essential because they are each accountable for a diverse set of activities and they each possess a set of skills that complement each other. Both of them work together from the start of the Project and set a platform for success by their proper Planning and Executing skills.
At times, only one person plays both the roles in some organizations. This article discusses the significance of assigning different individuals to each role to ensure project success.
Responsibilities of PM & BA
When One Person Performs Both Roles
In SMEs or when the Organization is short staffed, one person is assigned to act as both the PM and the BA. This kind of cases have been seen, where there is lack of understanding the roles and responsibilities of BA Role and people feel that Business Analysis is one of the activities that PM needs to do. When only one person is assigned to both the roles, the challenge is to be aware of the conflicting focus and try to act in one role at one point of time.
Skill Comparison: PM Vs BA?
Each role provides focused capabilities that make the difference between whether a project succeeds or struggles. PMs and BAs each have distinct skills and knowledge areas and both of them produce a high quality product. Both of them want the project to be successful and want to satisfy all the Stake-holders as well as the client. They understand the ultimate purpose of the project – to meet the project objectives. There are many other areas where the two individuals diverge and do very different types of tasks.
PM Vs BA - Skill Comparison
Dynamic Duos
When assigning PMs and BAs to a project, the success depends on their experience, knowledge and skill sets in the respective areas.
If a strong, experienced PM is assigned to work with an inexperienced, unskilled BA, the requirements gathering and analysis tasks may be quick and key requirements may be missed. This situation will result in rework on requirements analysis & development, missing deadlines, over budget, etc.
In contrary, if a weak PM is assigned to work with a skilled and experienced BA, too much time may be spent in requirements gathering and the project will fall behind schedule as BAs want to get every single detail to be captured 100%.
“The best way to guarantee success of any type of project is to have a strong, experienced Project Manager and a strong, experienced Business Analyst.”
The MAP that represents the consciousness level of an organization
and shows the strengths and areas with most growth potential
Invitation to the Atlas-Platform v1.0
The reason we created the map and the platform is to help organizations transform into more human workplaces. There are many names for this, humanizing the workplace, the Teal paradigm, Reinventing Organizations, the Future of Work and many others that all point to the same phenomenon, a workplace where people exercise their free will by working together toward some common vision that is aligned with their individual life purpose.
In order to move toward the human workplace, organizations need to work on many factors, the developmental lines on the map represent some of these aspects. The focal point of using the map is to create awareness for these factors and at the same time assess organizations so they know where they are and what is their next step.
The assessment process is currently manual and we are going to talk about it in the upcoming webinars that you can sign up at the top of the page. However, one part of the assessment process is already supported by the first release of the Atlas Platform. This is what I’d like to show you today.
In this first version we focused on two essential features:
The visual representation of the map
Simplifying translation
The images below show examples of what you can create with the platform:
We released the map under creative commons license, because we believe in the creative power of the community. The translations and the online survey, which we will talk about later, are the fruitful examples.
Thanks to the community we have the map translated into 6 languages that are all available on the platform:
English – core team
Hungarian – core team
Spanish – Israel Antezana R.& Martin Salias
Portuguese – Lucia Nader
Czech – Dáša Suissa
Danish – Vicky Miethe
Now, let’s look at the platform and what it can do for you.
This classic guide to organizational change management best practices has been updated for the current business environment. To read the newest article, click here. Or, to watch a related video, click on the play button above.
Way back when (pick your date), senior executives in large companies had a simple goal for themselves and their organizations: stability. Shareholders wanted little more than predictable earnings growth. Because so many markets were either closed or undeveloped, leaders could deliver on those expectations through annual exercises that offered only modest modifications to the strategic plan. Prices stayed in check; people stayed in their jobs; life was good.
Market transparency, labor mobility, global capital flows, and instantaneous communications have blown that comfortable scenario to smithereens. In most industries — and in almost all companies, from giants on down — heightened global competition has concentrated management’s collective mind on something that, in the past, it happily avoided: change. Successful companies, as Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter tolds+b in 1999, develop “a culture that just keeps moving all the time.”
This presents most senior executives with an unfamiliar challenge. In major transformations of large enterprises, they and their advisors conventionally focus their attention on devising the best strategic and tactical plans. But to succeed, they also must have an intimate understanding of the human side of change management — the alignment of the company’s culture, values, people, and behaviors — to encourage the desired results. Plans themselves do not capture value; value is realized only through the sustained, collective actions of the thousands — perhaps the tens of thousands — of employees who are responsible for designing, executing, and living with the changed environment.
Long-term structural transformation has four characteristics: scale (the change affects all or most of the organization), magnitude (it involves significant alterations of the status quo), duration (it lasts for months, if not years), and strategic importance. Yet companies will reap the rewards only when change occurs at the level of the individual employee.
Many senior executives know this and worry about it. When asked what keeps them up at night, CEOs involved in transformation often say they are concerned about how the work force will react, how they can get their team to work together, and how they will be able to lead their people. They also worry about retaining their company’s unique values and sense of identity and about creating a culture of commitment and performance. Leadership teams that fail to plan for the human side of change often find themselves wondering why their best-laid plans have gone awry.
No single methodology fits every company, but there is a set of practices, tools, and techniques that can be adapted to a variety of situations. What follows is a “Top 10” list of guiding principles for change management. Using these as a systematic, comprehensive framework, executives can understand what to expect, how to manage their own personal change, and how to engage the entire organization in the process.
1. Address the “human side” systematically. Any significant transformation creates “people issues.” New leaders will be asked to step up, jobs will be changed, new skills and capabilities must be developed, and employees will be uncertain and resistant. Dealing with these issues on a reactive, case-by-case basis puts speed, morale, and results at risk. A formal approach for managing change — beginning with the leadership team and then engaging key stakeholders and leaders — should be developed early, and adapted often as change moves through the organization. This demands as much data collection and analysis, planning, and implementation discipline as does a redesign of strategy, systems, or processes. The change-management approach should be fully integrated into program design and decision making, both informing and enabling strategic direction. It should be based on a realistic assessment of the organization’s history, readiness, and capacity to change.
2. Start at the top. Because change is inherently unsettling for people at all levels of an organization, when it is on the horizon, all eyes will turn to the CEO and the leadership team for strength, support, and direction. The leaders themselves must embrace the new approaches first, both to challenge and to motivate the rest of the institution. They must speak with one voice and model the desired behaviors. The executive team also needs to understand that, although its public face may be one of unity, it, too, is composed of individuals who are going through stressful times and need to be supported.
Executive teams that work well together are best positioned for success. They are aligned and committed to the direction of change, understand the culture and behaviors the changes intend to introduce, and can model those changes themselves. At one large transportation company, the senior team rolled out an initiative to improve the efficiency and performance of its corporate and field staff before addressing change issues at the officer level. The initiative realized initial cost savings but stalled as employees began to question the leadership team’s vision and commitment. Only after the leadership team went through the process of aligning and committing to the change initiative was the work force able to deliver downstream results.
3. Involve every layer. As transformation programs progress from defining strategy and setting targets to design and implementation, they affect different levels of the organization. Change efforts must include plans for identifying leaders throughout the company and pushing responsibility for design and implementation down, so that change “cascades” through the organization. At each layer of the organization, the leaders who are identified and trained must be aligned to the company’s vision, equipped to execute their specific mission, and motivated to make change happen.
A major multiline insurer with consistently flat earnings decided to change performance and behavior in preparation for going public. The company followed this “cascading leadership” methodology, training and supporting teams at each stage. First, 10 officers set the strategy, vision, and targets. Next, more than 60 senior executives and managers designed the core of the change initiative. Then 500 leaders from the field drove implementation. The structure remained in place throughout the change program, which doubled the company’s earnings far ahead of schedule. This approach is also a superb way for a company to identify its next generation of leadership.
4. Make the formal case. Individuals are inherently rational and will question to what extent change is needed, whether the company is headed in the right direction, and whether they want to commit personally to making change happen. They will look to the leadership for answers. The articulation of a formal case for change and the creation of a written vision statement are invaluable opportunities to create or compel leadership-team alignment.
Three steps should be followed in developing the case: First, confront reality and articulate a convincing need for change. Second, demonstrate faith that the company has a viable future and the leadership to get there. Finally, provide a road map to guide behavior and decision making. Leaders must then customize this message for various internal audiences, describing the pending change in terms that matter to the individuals.
A consumer packaged-goods company experiencing years of steadily declining earnings determined that it needed to significantly restructure its operations — instituting, among other things, a 30 percent work force reduction — to remain competitive. In a series of offsite meetings, the executive team built a brutally honest business case that downsizing was the only way to keep the business viable, and drew on the company’s proud heritage to craft a compelling vision to lead the company forward. By confronting reality and helping employees understand the necessity for change, leaders were able to motivate the organization to follow the new direction in the midst of the largest downsizing in the company’s history. Instead of being shell-shocked and demoralized, those who stayed felt a renewed resolve to help the enterprise advance.
5. Create ownership. Leaders of large change programs must overperform during the transformation and be the zealots who create a critical mass among the work force in favor of change. This requires more than mere buy-in or passive agreement that the direction of change is acceptable. It demands ownership by leaders willing to accept responsibility for making change happen in all of the areas they influence or control. Ownership is often best created by involving people in identifying problems and crafting solutions. It is reinforced by incentives and rewards. These can be tangible (for example, financial compensation) or psychological (for example, camaraderie and a sense of shared destiny).
At a large health-care organization that was moving to a shared-services model for administrative support, the first department to create detailed designs for the new organization was human resources. Its personnel worked with advisors in cross-functional teams for more than six months. But as the designs were being finalized, top departmental executives began to resist the move to implementation. While agreeing that the work was top-notch, the executives realized they hadn’t invested enough individual time in the design process to feel the ownership required to begin implementation. On the basis of their feedback, the process was modified to include a “deep dive.” The departmental executives worked with the design teams to learn more, and get further exposure to changes that would occur. This was the turning point; the transition then happened quickly. It also created a forum for top executives to work as a team, creating a sense of alignment and unity that the group hadn’t felt before.
6. Communicate the message. Too often, change leaders make the mistake of believing that others understand the issues, feel the need to change, and see the new direction as clearly as they do. The best change programs reinforce core messages through regular, timely advice that is both inspirational and practicable. Communications flow in from the bottom and out from the top, and are targeted to provide employees the right information at the right time and to solicit their input and feedback. Often this will require overcommunication through multiple, redundant channels.
In the late 1990s, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Charles O. Rossotti, had a vision: The IRS could treat taxpayers as customers and turn a feared bureaucracy into a world-class service organization. Getting more than 100,000 employees to think and act differently required more than just systems redesign and process change. IRS leadership designed and executed an ambitious communications program including daily voice mails from the commissioner and his top staff, training sessions, videotapes, newsletters, and town hall meetings that continued through the transformation. Timely, constant, practical communication was at the heart of the program, which brought the IRS’s customer ratings from the lowest in various surveys to its current ranking above the likes of McDonald’s and most airlines.
7. Assess the cultural landscape. Successful change programs pick up speed and intensity as they cascade down, making it critically important that leaders understand and account for culture and behaviors at each level of the organization. Companies often make the mistake of assessing culture either too late or not at all. Thorough cultural diagnostics can assess organizational readiness to change, bring major problems to the surface, identify conflicts, and define factors that can recognize and influence sources of leadership and resistance. These diagnostics identify the core values, beliefs, behaviors, and perceptions that must be taken into account for successful change to occur. They serve as the common baseline for designing essential change elements, such as the new corporate vision, and building the infrastructure and programs needed to drive change.
8. Address culture explicitly. Once the culture is understood, it should be addressed as thoroughly as any other area in a change program. Leaders should be explicit about the culture and underlying behaviors that will best support the new way of doing business, and find opportunities to model and reward those behaviors. This requires developing a baseline, defining an explicit end-state or desired culture, and devising detailed plans to make the transition.
Company culture is an amalgam of shared history, explicit values and beliefs, and common attitudes and behaviors. Change programs can involve creating a culture (in new companies or those built through multiple acquisitions), combining cultures (in mergers or acquisitions of large companies), or reinforcing cultures (in, say, long-established consumer goods or manufacturing companies). Understanding that all companies have a cultural center — the locus of thought, activity, influence, or personal identification — is often an effective way to jump-start culture change.
A consumer goods company with a suite of premium brands determined that business realities demanded a greater focus on profitability and bottom-line accountability. In addition to redesigning metrics and incentives, it developed a plan to systematically change the company’s culture, beginning with marketing, the company’s historical center. It brought the marketing staff into the process early to create enthusiasts for the new philosophy who adapted marketing campaigns, spending plans, and incentive programs to be more accountable. Seeing these culture leaders grab onto the new program, the rest of the company quickly fell in line.
9. Prepare for the unexpected. No change program goes completely according to plan. People react in unexpected ways; areas of anticipated resistance fall away; and the external environment shifts. Effectively managing change requires continual reassessment of its impact and the organization’s willingness and ability to adopt the next wave of transformation. Fed by real data from the field and supported by information and solid decision-making processes, change leaders can then make the adjustments necessary to maintain momentum and drive results.
A leading U.S. health-care company was facing competitive and financial pressures from its inability to react to changes in the marketplace. A diagnosis revealed shortcomings in its organizational structure and governance, and the company decided to implement a new operating model. In the midst of detailed design, a new CEO and leadership team took over. The new team was initially skeptical, but was ultimately convinced that a solid case for change, grounded in facts and supported by the organization at large, existed. Some adjustments were made to the speed and sequence of implementation, but the fundamentals of the new operating model remained unchanged.
10. Speak to the individual. Change is both an institutional journey and a very personal one. People spend many hours each week at work; many think of their colleagues as a second family. Individuals (or teams of individuals) need to know how their work will change, what is expected of them during and after the change program, how they will be measured, and what success or failure will mean for them and those around them. Team leaders should be as honest and explicit as possible. People will react to what they see and hear around them, and need to be involved in the change process. Highly visible rewards, such as promotion, recognition, and bonuses, should be provided as dramatic reinforcement for embracing change. Sanction or removal of people standing in the way of change will reinforce the institution’s commitment.
Most leaders contemplating change know that people matter. It is all too tempting, however, to dwell on the plans and processes, which don’t talk back and don’t respond emotionally, rather than face up to the more difficult and more critical human issues. But mastering the “soft” side of change management needn’t be a mystery.
Author Profiles:
John Jones is a vice president with Booz Allen Hamilton in New York. Mr. Jones is a specialist in organization design, process reengineering, and change management.
DeAnne Aguirre (deanne.aguirre@strategyand.us.pwc.com) is an advisor to executives on organizational topics for Strategy&, PwC's strategy consulting business, and a principal with PwC US. Based in San Francisco, she specializes in culture, leadership, talent effectiveness, and organizational change management.
Matthew Calderone is a senior associate with Booz Allen Hamilton in the New York Office. He specializes in organization transformation, people issues, and change management.
