I’m wondering how different change might look and how well it might sustain if we started in a different place.
Change often starts with the conviction that change is needed—generally because things aren’t going as well as desired. Missed or declining metrics (like profits) become the burning platform. And while everyone in the organisation can see, or at least have a sense of, the shift, the solution — a change programme, be it restructuring or downsizing, or whatever — is mandated by a very small, tight group at the top, with a programme plan drawn up. In a perfect world, this lovely, linear process would roll smoothly from start to finish. Yet it often doesn’t.
Perhaps first we should be looking at the big picture – considering change from a systemic viewpoint. The interconnected, interdependent nature of organisations means that we may shift the dial in one part of the entity, triggering a domino effect of unintended consequences in other parts and beyond the walls. Our burning platform may be rapidly turning into a crisis.
And you know most change programmes stutter, and change fails to sustain, because of the most valuable and important variable — the organisation’s people. So how about we start from a different perspective — that of those affected?
There are times when it is more than the top team who can see that things aren’t working. What if we asked colleagues for their take on why? The change that’s designed as a result of this dialogue may look wholly different and be more likely to be widely understood and owned.
And then there’s purpose. Of equal importance to the system and our people…organisational purpose is our licence to operate — defining our business’s unique contribution to the world. Its North Star that should inform every decision and action. Where change isn’t congruent with purpose trust across the system will fall away, rapidly.
Planning for change isn’t about the programme plan—it’s about starting in the right place, about listening to the organisational wisdom held by its people, and about tending the heart and soul of the business to make things better for all.