This workshop will talk about the how to create change, how people react to change and how to decide what to change. It gives an overview of how people will react. It talks about how to over come the inertial people have. It talks about working with people who are most open to change first. It also talks about process improvement which is more than just change for change's sake.
What make a good salesperson? The question is easier if we think
of how we want to be treated when we make a major purchase.
Exercise - What makes a good sales person?Under 20 people
Over 20 people
At the end of the discussion, compare the list given to the list in the overhead "What people like from salespeople" Time: |
"The only one in life who likes change is a wet baby." - Roger von Oech
This isn't true, but it's on the right track. People have an inertia. Because the have inertia they will tend to do what they have been doing until a great enough force is applied. When dealing with people, that force can be described as pain. People change when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of changing.
In the case of the baby, it was being wet that caused the pain than made him desire change. What is causing the pain for the group you are working with? How will the change you are proposing help that pain?
The pain of staying the same comes from more work to do in less time and trying to stay ahead of the competitors. They are the same factors that caused you to what to create the change.
Science tells us that if an object has mass, an instantaneous change requires infinite force. Each person has a physical mass. They also have a "mass" of thoughts and ideas. How fast we can change an organization determines on how much force you need to use. Later we will look at ways to apply the change so some of that inertia works for us instead of against us.
[Put up overhead "Resistance to Change"]
The resistance to change comes because people have to expend energy before
they get the benefits of the change. What requires this extra energy?
Worry caused by uncertainty. Old techniques can't be used and they
have to learn new techniques; they have to work harder and they make progress
slower. The experienced people are starting from scratch just like
new people. As they encounter more of these obstacles, the effort goes
up. After they start to learn the new system, the effort goes down
below where they initially started.
[Put up overhead "Reaction to Change"]
This overhead shows both the resistance to change and people's reaction
to the change. When you've sold the idea of change, people become
excited. This results in the euphoric blip.
Then, they start to experience the resistance and the mood drops off. As they learn they may have one or more hills and valleys as they learn the new system. At this point in the process, "preaching to the choir" is a good thing. We will talk more about preaching to the choir in a later section.
As they start to become comfortable with the changes, their enthusiasm improves and the resistance decreases. You aren't done yet. There are three levels of acceptance "good idea but it won't work here", "good idea but we are too busy to do it the right way" and "good idea and we will stick with it when things get busy". At this point, people are still in the middle phase.
As you reach the plateau, the change is becoming institutionalized and
people will do things the right way because it is the right way to do it.
We mentioned that everyone has a mass. If we look around this room, we see that everyone doesn't have the same physical mass. They don't all have the same mass when it comes to ideas either.
When you're building support, don't start with the hardest people first. Start with the people who will be the most receptive to your ideas. As the number of people starts to grow, people will want to jump on the band wagon. Once you start to show some successes, the critics will join.
Before you are done, both management and the team members must be sold for the change to be successful. If management isn't committed, people won't be given the time and resources needed make the change work. It must be real commitment and not just saying "do it" while presenting a list of things which are more important. The team members need to be sold. Otherwise, they will go though the motions without making the necessary effort.
[Put up overhead "Pilot Project"]
If you don't know what you are doing, don't do it in a big way. The pilot project gives you a chance to work the bugs out before trying things on a large scale.
The critics and hard sells want an example of it "working here". After all, "we're different" just because you have data showing that it works in a number of other companies doesn't mean people will accept it at your company. One or more small project(s) gives you a chance to show success at your company.
When you launch a pilot project, it allows you the change to tune the program to your company. Watch and listen to the people in your pilot. Refine the program before rolling it out to everyone.
You can launch pilot projects for different parts of your program. You don't have to have the same team working on all of the pilots. This allows you target the people who can benefit from the program the most. It also allows you to try the pilot where there is the biggest room for improvement.
[Turn off overhead projector]
I mentioned earlier people change when the force to change is greater than the resistance to change. The force to motivate them needs to be something they are interested in not what you are interested in.
For example, if you've created a tool and you would like an other group
to take over maintenance. You've had fun creating the tool because
it gave you a chance to try a new technology. But, if they
aren't interested in that technology, telling them how much fun it will
be or how much they will learn. If they are interested in having
control of their tools, you will be much more effective telling them how
they will be able to make improvements without waiting for you to get a
break in other projects.
Exercise - What's in it for them?
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[Put up the overhead "Preaching to the Choir"]
Preaching to the choir has two purposes. First, it encourages people to continue with the new process even when they are spending a lot of time learning the new processes and tools. Second, it's a chance to teach new skills that people will need.
The first method people think about is making a presentation. The project "Manage and Motivate" from Speeches by Management provide a good format for your presentation. To make your presentation effective practice it a head of time then get feedback. This can be a colleague at work. Or, it could be presented at a Toastmasters meeting. If you are going to present it at a meeting, work with your Vice President of Education to arrange a time.
A brown bag is any discussion over lunch. It could be a formal presentation. It could be a discussion of problems and solutions.
If people need to learn new skills, schedule a training session. These are most effective if they are a couple hours long. If they are too long, people won't want to take time off of work to attend. The first session can teach basic skills. A few weeks later, people have had a chance to practice the basic skills. Then, you can have a session that works on more advanced skills.
A newsletter can be an effective tool also. This tends to be used more on larger changes. The newsletter can be printed or e-mailed depending on your environment.
What tools should you use? It depends on the size of the change and the number of people effected.
We normally think of a project as being put though a process. The process includes both the direct action and feedback which we used to adjust aspects of the project as we move to completing. The overhead shows a different way of looking at the process.
Process improvement isn't a one time change. It's an on going activity. You have a process. You use it on a project. After the project, you look at how things went. This could be a post project review, feed back from testing or feed back from your customers. The process is changed. If the change doesn't produce the desired result, we change the process again until we get the improvements we are seeking.
In order to know if things are improved, you first need to decide what improved really is. Then, you need to determine how you will measure it before and after. Data collection needs to be as simple as possible. If the team members need to spend too much effort collecting data, it won't get collected. Also, the people need to know the data won't be used to grade them at their next review. Otherwise, they will maximize the measure without improving the process.
We can't change everything at one time. As was mentioned before, change has an upfront cost. It is seldom wise to change everything because we need to get something accomplished while we make the changes. Take the one to three biggest problems and change the way your process works. The process is then repeated.
[Put up the overhead "Six Step Process Improvement"]
To create change first you need to identify what products and services you provide. This may seam like a simple process, but it helps you to remain focused.
Second, identify your customers and their needs. The customers may be traditional customers outside of your company or other departments. The final customer's needs need to be considered. This means talking to those customer or interviewing them. For a successful product, other customers must be considered. The people who do the purchasing may have a different idea of what features are important than the people actually using the product. The people who build and repair the product need to be considered also.
Third, compare your products and services with your customer's needs. If these don't match, you need to change your products or target customers.
Forth, you need to document your process. Document the real process not the one in the dusty binders that no one ever reads. Documenting the process doesn't have to be an arduous task. If the documentation is the size of War and Peace, it's too long. A one page document is acceptable.
Fifth, look at what can be done to make the biggest improvement in the overall process. The change may reduce cost, decrease time or increase quality.
Sixth, did the change produce the expected results? If the improvements don't materialize, why not? If it did work, look for what went wrong not who is wrong.
[Put up the overhead "What to Change?"]
When you are looking for ways to improve your process, get other people's ideas. They provide a new set of ideas to consider. Also, people like to be heard. If you listen to their ideas and carefully consider them, people are more receptive to your final solution. Even if, the final solution doesn't include the idea they suggested. You have considered their needs. Most people realize you have to make changes which maximize the benefit to the entire group and not just to them.
Brainstorming is a tool for generating new ideas. Brainstorming has two separate phases. The first is to generate ideas. The second is to select ideas. It's important to keep these two phases separate.
The first phase of brainstorming is to generate ideas. Each person suggests an idea. The ideas can be serious or crazy. They are all recorded where people can see them. The ideas aren't evaluated at this point because a crazy idea and a serious idea may give someone a new idea that's better than either of them. The discussion continues around the table many times until all of the ideas have been presented. (See "The Round Robin" from The Discussion Leader for more information on facilitating the idea generation phase.)
There should be a break between the two phase of the brainstorming. This can be an announced changed of purpose, a coffee break or a meeting scheduled later.
In the second phase of brainstorming, you discuss and evaluate the ideas that were generated during the brainstorming. The purpose is generate the list of ideas you want to try. The list can be prioritized. You can report the list of suggested changes and a list of ideas to look at later.
Post project reviews are held by the team after a project is completed. Often times managers are excluded from these meetings because people may be inhibited from discussing the project honestly if they feel it might appear on their next performance review. Like the brain storming session, the ideas should recorded where everyone can see them. As issues are analyzed, some of the ideas can be combined. For example, two problems may be combined into the need for more team work. Since you can't solve everything at once, the top three problems are selected. The team will implement these three suggestions on the next project.
Failure analysis is looking at data from reviews during project development, from testing results or from customer feedback. The purpose is to find a trend or root cause for a series of failures. Then, determine the action to correct the problem.
When you are looking for ideas on how to improve, don't look just at your own profession. Often times, the most creative solutions come from applying ideas that are used by others to your own application.
Don't be afraid of a big change. It's the big changes that often produce the biggest results. People used to ship documents around the world via the large delivery companies. These companies worked to reduce their delivery time. The time went from days to overnight. However today, we don't used them for delivering many documents. Now, we FAX the documents around the world. They get to their destination in seconds instead of overnight.
We need to sell change to people based on what's important to the people involved implementing it. This includes both the managers and team members. It's important to work with the people involved all the way though the change process. You need a clear picture of what the process is before you can change it. Don't just implement change; find out others needs and their ideas for change.
It may be challenging, but when you see the need for change, make it happen. It's a lot more satisfying to be in the driver's seat than to wait for change happen to you.
What people like from salespeople
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Resistance to Change |
Reaction to Change |
Don't Start With Everyone |
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Preaching to the Choir
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Process Improvement |
What to Change?
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Summary
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"Quality Improvement and Organizational Change" by Audrey Neal. 1994 Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
"Incremental Process Improvement" by Rick Clements. 1996 Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
"10 Piece Toolbox to get People to Change" by Mary Sackrey. 1997 Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
"Steamrolling the Organization with Process, or is there a better way?" by Neil Potter & Mary Sackrey. 1999 Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference.
"Leadership from the Technical Side of the Ladder" by Norm Kerth. (workshop)
"Creating Optimum Performance During Process Improvement" by Liz Learmont. (workshop)
"Make It Persuasive" from Basic Communication and Leadership Program by Toastmasters International.
"Manage and Motivate" from Speeches by Management by Toastmasters International.
"Training the Sales Force" and "The Sales Meeting" from The Professional Salesperson by Toastmasters International.
"The Seminar Solution" and "The Round Robin" from The Discussion Leader by Toastmasters International.