CAROL KINSEY GOMAN ON STRATEGIES TO EXCEL IN CHANGING TIMES

Why do people today need help dealing with change?

Change has always been there--some of us actually like it. What's changed about change is the incredible pace. It has accelerated to the point where change affects everything from the individual to the organization to society. People at every level have to look at what change is and how to manage it better in their lives.

Why has the pace of change become so fast?

Probably the greatest accelerator is technology. We're rampant with technological change, but it's not only that. It's everything from globalization to different economies to the individual. What people want from their organizations is very different than a decade ago. Kids coming out of college have a different way of looking at the workplace. Organizations have to deal with that.
Customers have become incredibly sophisticated. Someone can use software to order directly from the manufacturer and forget about the people in the middle. Suddenly all these layers of managers whose job it was to collect that information are wondering what they're supposed to be doing, it's redefined jobs entirely. What (salespeople) have to become is big time relationship builders for the customer -- it's a whole different way of doing things. On top of all of that we've got the millennial change. And we've got the switch from the last of the industrial age to the information age. Everything is happening at once. The real question is, "How did we get this far and stay as sane as we have ?"

Organizations face the challenges of globalization,
deregulation, technological advances, customer pressures,
internal changes and the changing values of the work force.

What characterizes today's business environment?

There are 10 identifiers.

1. Change is no longer a force in the business environment is the business environment. Ten years ago we thought, "How do I get through the change to get back to business as usual?" Now it is business as usual.

2. Change is everywhere. Organizations around the industrialized world face the challenges of globalization, deregulation, technological advances, customer pressures, internal changes and the changing values of the work force.

3. The most difficult behaviors to change are those responsible for your past success. This is why it's so difficult for successful people to change. When you're asking successful organizations to change, you're also asking individuals whose success in the past was based on certain behaviors to change those behaviors. That's hard.

4. The pace of change is accelerating. If you stand still you'll be obsolete. You might not like it, but that's a fact.

5. The best time to change is before you have to. That's one of those things that's difficult for people. Change while you're successful before the market slams you and closes your business. Be more proactive than you've ever been.

6. Your reaction to change is, totally within your control. This is the one to lock on to. If change is the given, it sometimes feels as if nothing is in your control, but when it comes to attitude and how you label change, that is in your control.

7. You don't have to like change to deal with it successfully; however, you must accept it. Of people who do well with change, about 50 percent do well because they like it. The other half don't particularly like it, but they accept it and have incredible coping strategies.

8. Almost no one likes change done to them and almost everyone likes change done by them.

9. Change is inevitable. If you strive for stability, you set yourself up for change to come in the form of a crisis. As scary as change looks, the biggest crisis can come in choosing not to change.

10. The only real security is that which you develop within yourself. Develop the characteristics of change adeptness -- understand how to manage a changing organization. Everywhere you go you'll have to deal with that. Learn how it -- it's one of those portable skills you're going to need.

The pace of change is accelerating.
If you stand still you'll be obsolete.
You might not like it, but that's a fact.

Aren't most organizations prepared to deal with change?

They're prepared to deal with it on a strategic level, but most organizations don't understand what that means on a human level. The strategy may look great, but they don't have a clue what it takes for human beings to make that strategy come to fruition.

People in the organization are ver3' different than the people making the strategy. Most executives grew up with a different mind set, a different way of thinking about relating to an organization, a different way of thinking about management. It's not that they aren't fabulous leaders, but there are a lot of folks out there who don't know you can't tell people what to do.

You can't announce a change out of the blue, walk away and think that change is going to magically filter down through the company. It doesn't work that way. People are much more aware that this is their organization, too. They need to have a say, and they need to know why the change is going on. They need a broad context, and they need to be brought into the planning process.

There are myriad things that need to happen for people to get on board for the chan~e. There is an emotional swing that's a nor-mat natural consequence of a large-scale transformation. It's very much like the Kubler-Ross death and dying model, it starts with denial and works its way back up to commitment. Unless you understand what's going to happen in those stages and build a strategy around that, you end up bl~cking people in certain stares and wondering why the change didn't work.

You can't announce a change out of the blue,
walk away and think that change is going
to magically filter down through the company.

How can I help employees support a needed change?

The communication function in an organization is absolutely pivotal--but you've got to redefine what communication is. It's not just the internal article in your newsletter or on your Web site. In the change process, that's only about 10 percent of what people rely on to make a decision about a change. Fortv-five percent is in the system. Whatever you do to reward or penalize someone is a form of communication that speaks louder than your articles. The remaining 45 percent is management behavior. Understand the consequences of how you support a change, how you embody it and that people are looking at what you do. If those things are not in place, you can have a fine internal communication function and still not have a satisfactory change effort.

Honor those parts of the past that you can take into the future and learn to let go of those parts that won't serve you.
What if my organization has traditionally been slow to change?

Look at the environment. First, understand how other businesses have transformed themselves there are lessons there. You can pull these out and say, "Let's not repeat the mistakes that have been made a million times."

Second, determine when the time is right. Look at the internal and external environment and how it is the same and how it is different from the past. Honor those parts of the past that you can take into the future and learn to let go of those parts that won't serve you. That's easy' to say; very, very, difficult to do.

This is when you determine, "Where do we think the changes are going to come What don't we want to change?" Keep a series of values that's intrinsic to the organization. Then start looking at the behaviors that have to change.

Facilitate a discussion in which people reach the conclusion that, as good as they are, if they keep doing what they've been doing,, they're going to be obsolete in the future of chaos and accelerated change. Once that conclusion is reached, look at what you need to do. What do you need to know about people? And how do you manage people through the emotional transition phases of change?
How can I better manage change?

If you can't pay as much as your competitors, create the kind of environment that people will be attracted to. You've got to be much better at understanding what motivates people beyond money. You can say, "We're almost as competitive but a little below, therefore we're going to create an environment that is so much more attractive to people that they will be able to accept the lower payment, Or you've got to say, "We're not going to be able to attract and retain people in the long run, so how can we learn to be profitable and work with people that we're only going to be able to attract for the short run?'

And maybe what we do is attract them as a training ground for something else: "What can we do so they give their best effort while they're here: How can we help manage and understand that it's going to be only for a while."

That's a whole different way of looking at it. It's not so much for outsiders to come in and give words of wisdom, but to really facilitate a dialogue in which people can rethink the way they've set up the business and see how they can be successful in a new environment.

How is chaos different from change?

Chaos comes when change becomes much more complex
than it has in the past--when so many changes are happening at once. Chaos means there is so much going on that you can't rely on a set of rules and procedures to make decisions, because those rules and procedures were made for a simpler time. Chaos also means you don't know where the next change is coming from.

When you're in a chaotic situation, you need to go from rules and regulations to values so people can make decisions quickly without having to look up 27 regulations. Have a limit on how to make decisions, but within that limit have very few rules and a lot of guiding principles.

That's a different wax' of thinking about organizations. Living systems--whether they are cells or humans--have the capacity to self-organize. It's not that mana~crs have to micro-manage. They've ~ot to give vision and direction, and then get out of the way so people can organize. These are things that companies are grappling with, not because they're so advanced in thinking about science, but because they realize that how they've been operating in the past can't work. You can't be in a nano-second world and have somebody ask 12 levels of managers whether they can give somebody a $2 credit.

If you can't pay as much as your competitors,
create the kind of environment that people will be attracted to.

How can retailers measure success?

Retailers are doing some things very well. 1 use the Nordstrom example. They have, without knowing it, designed things around this idea of chaos. There's only one rule when working for Nordstrom' use your best judgment. They've taken away the rulebook and what they've put in its place is this incredible communication effort. How far do we go to honor that value?

Sears has done some interesting things. They've implemented a value chain. They treat employees in ways that will affect customers. That will affect the bottom line. They've also done some things with learning maps to get everybody in the organization to be business literate, to understand what kind of profit is generated when somebody spends a dollar and where it goes, and how what they do impacts that. Retailers are trying very hard to understand the business environment and position themselves.

It's kind of exciting, and kind of scary. But any adventure is. It's like the Chinese ideogram for the word crisis. There's danger and opportunity. That's the way it is~that's what change is. The trick is to ferret out as much of the opportunity as possible while not neglecting the danger.