Tag Archives: Change Planning Toolkit

‘Charting Change’ Now Launching on March 9th

Charting ChangeTo supporters of my first book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire and my latest book Charting Change, I am sad to say that the launch date for my new book, designed to make change less overwhelming and more human, has moved back to March 9, 2016.

Get Everyone Literally on the Same Page for Change!

Charting Change – A Visual Toolkit for Making Change Stick, the follow-up to Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, is being published by Palgrave Macmillan, and is now available for pre-order at all of the Amazon online bookstores (USA, UK, DE, FR, JP, CA) and many other retailers around the world. BookDepository.com ships FREE to nearly 90 countries.

What People Are Saying

Daniel H Pink“There’s no denying it: Change is scary. But it’s also inevitable. In Charting Change, Braden Kelley gives you a toolkit and a blueprint for initiating and managing change in your organization, no matter what form it takes.”
– Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and To Sell is Human

Eric Hieger“Thoughtful, thorough, and practical is the rare blend that Braden has achieved in this Change Management field guide. Much more than a series of tactics, Charting Change will explicitly, sequentially, and visually help users create a diverse set of experiences for stakeholders that will most certainly increase likelihood of success.”
– Eric D. Hieger, Psy.D., Business Transformation and Change Leadership Practice Lead at ADP

Denise Fletcher“As the pace of change speeds up, the market disruptions and resulting changes can be daunting for all. We all wish we could predict how change will affect our business, our market and our people. No matter what business area you come from, change affects us all and can produce great outcomes when managed well. In Braden Kelley’s newest book, Charting Change, he provides a terrific toolkit to manage this process and make it stick.”
– Denise Fletcher, Chief Innovation Officer, Xerox

Phil McKinney“Braden Kelley and his merry band of guest experts have done a nice job of visualizing in Charting Change how to make future change efforts more collaborative. Kelley shows how to draw out the hidden assumptions and land mines early in the change planning process, and presents some great techniques for keeping people aligned as a change effort or project moves forward.”
– Phil McKinney, retired CTO for Hewlett-Packard and author of Beyond the Obvious

Marshall Goldsmith“Higher employee retention? Increased revenue? Process enhancements? Whatever your change goal, Charting Change is full of bright ideas and invaluable visual guides to walk you through change in any area where your organization needs it.”
– Marshall Goldsmith is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Triggers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

The Opportunity

Braden Kelley - Author of "Charting Change"

Innovation is about change, and organizations and individuals resist change. But, if you look around the business ecosystem, you’ll see that the companies that successfully innovate in a repeatable fashion and stay at the top of their industries have one thing in common – they are good at managing change.

Research shows that up to seventy percent of all change initiatives fail. Let’s face it, change is hard, as is getting an organization on board and working through the process. One thing that has been known to be effective is onboarding teams not only to understand this change, but to see the process and the progress of institutional change. Charting Change will help teams and companies visualize this complicated process.

The Concept

I have developed the Change Planning Toolkit™ and the Change Planning Canvas™, which enable leadership and project teams to easily discuss the variables that will influence the change effort and organize them in a collaborative and visual way. It will help managers build a cohesive approach that can be more easily embraced by employees who are charged with the actual implementation of change. Charting Change will teach readers how to use this visual toolkit to build a common language and vision for implementing change.

The Supplemental Materials

Get the new Change Planning Toolkit™ downloadsAfter the book launches, book buyers will get access to the Change Planning Toolkit™ Basic License which includes access to 26 of the 50+ frameworks, worksheets, and other tools (including the Change Planning Canvas™) in a 11″x17″ downloadable PDF format. To get access to poster size versions (35″x56″) of these tools, please contact me about upgrading to an affordable site license.

Click here to purchase the Change Planning Toolkit™ Basic License – Advance Purchase Edition now on this web site and get instant access to the supplemental materials and a digital version of the book when it becomes available.

The Toolkit

— Click here to get more information about the Change Planning Toolkit™
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Where to Buy (now available for pre-order until March 2016)

More Change Planning Toolkit™ Resources:

The Case Studies in Charting Change

NHS Challenge Top-Down ChangeChallenge Top Down Change (@NHSEngland, @HSJnews and @NursingTimes)

NHS Improving Quality, a national improvement body of NHS England, working in partnership with the Health Service Journal (HSJ) and the Nursing Times (NT) national healthcare management titles to challenge top down change.

Babak ForutanpourQualcomm Flux – Babak Forutanpour

Babak Forutanpour (@bababinke) is a curious soul, an engineer, a UX Technologist, and a VFX Artist. He is the founder of Qualcomm’s FLUX and Co-Creator of Don’t Dream Alone. Creator of the @TheAryaBall.

The Guest Experts in Charting Change

Beth Montag SchmaltzBeth Montag Schmaltz (@bethmschmaltz)

Beth Montag Schmaltz is a Founding Partner at 71 & Change, a strategy and implementation consulting company that designs and implements solutions to address today’s workforce challenges. Most importantly, we believe that Your People = Your Success.

Dion HinchcliffeDion Hinchcliffe (@dhinchcliffe)

Dion Hinchcliffe is a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. He is a well-known business strategist, enterprise architect, book author, frequent keynote speaker, analyst, and transformation consultant.

Matthew E MayMatthew E. May (@matthewemay)

Matthew E. May is a strategy facilitator, innovation coach, and lean trainer. Author of four books (including The Laws of Subtraction and The Elegant Solution), working on a 5th.

Rosemarie Ryan & Ty MontagueTy Montague (@tmontague) and Rosemarie Ryan (@RosemarieRyan)

Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of co:collective, a strategy and innovation company that works with leadership teams to conceive and execute innovation in customer experience using a proprietary methodology called StoryDoing ©.

Tanveer NaseerTanveer Naseer, MSc. (@TanveerNaseer)

Tanveer Naseer is an award-winning and internationally-acclaimed leadership writer, author of the book “Leadership Vertigo”, keynote speaker, and founder of Tanveer Naseer Leadership, a leadership coaching firm.

Brett ClayBrett Clay (@sellingchange)

Brett Clay is the Founder and President of Change Leadership Group, LLC and author, “Selling Change, 101 Secrets for Growing Sales by Leading Change.”

Ayelet BaronAyelet Baron (@ayeletb)

Ayelet Baron is a futurist helping to build thriving 21st century organizations with conscious leaders who drive shared purpose. Ayelet is a keynote speaker and author whose purpose is to open people’s minds and hearts about what’s possible when we lifework in abundance.

Seth KahanSeth Kahan (@sethkahan)

Seth Kahan is an executive advisor who guides CEOs on leading change and innovation to create powerfully positive impact.
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Rohit TalwarRohit Talwar (@fastfuture)

Rohit Talwar is a global futurist and CEO of Fast Future Research and Fast Future Publishing. He is the editor of The Future of Business – published in June 2015.
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Charting Change Number One New Release on AmazonTable of Contents from Charting Change

  • Acknowledgements
  • Preface
  • Change Planning Canvas™ (2-page foldout)
  • Chapter 1 – Changing Change
  • Chapter 2 – Planning Change
  • Chapter 3 – Understanding the Current State
  • BONUS FEATURE – NHS (Case Study – Challenging Top Down Change)
  • Chapter 4 – Exploring Readiness for Change and Transitions
  • Chapter 5 – Envisioning the Desired State
  • BONUS FEATURE – Seth Kahan (Guest Expert – Generating Dramatic Surges of Progress)
  • Chapter 6 – Picking the Right Target for Your Change Effort
  • Chapter 7 – The Benefits of Change
  • Chapter 8 – The People Side of Change
  • Chapter 9 – Barriers and Obstacles to Change
  • BONUS FEATURE – Matthew E May (Guest Expert – Reverse Engineer Your Strategy)
  • Chapter 10 – Not Everything about Change is Wonderful
  • Chapter 11 – Breaking it Down
  • Chapter 12 – Now What (The Resource Challenge)
  • BONUS FEATURE – Beth Montag-Schmaltz (Guest Expert – Change Saturation)
  • Chapter 13 – Building the Case for Change
  • BONUS FEATURE – Brett Clay (Guest Expert – Selling Change)
  • Chapter 14 – Communicating Change
  • BONUS FEATURE – Ty Montague and Rosemarie Ryan (Guest Experts – StoryDoing)
  • Chapter 15 – Leading Change
  • BONUS FEATURE – Tanveer Naseer (Guest Expert – Leading Change)
  • Chapter 16 – Innovation is All about Change
  • BONUS FEATURE – Babak Forutanpour (Case Study – Qualcomm Flux)
  • Chapter 17 – Project and Portfolio Management Are About Change
  • BONUS FEATURE – Dion Hinchcliffe (Guest Expert – Digital Transformation Best Practices)
  • Chapter 18 – The Future of Change
  • BONUS FEATURE – Rohit Talwar (Guest Expert – The Future of Business)
  • BONUS FEATURE – Ayelet Baron (Guest Expert – Change is Abundant in the 21st Century)
  • About the Author

Accelerate your change and transformation success

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Standardizing Change

In The Five Keys to Successful Change I highlight five key areas for organizations to focus on if they are serious about building a strong, sustainable capability in organizational change, including:

  1. Change Planning
  2. Change Leadership
  3. Change Management
  4. Change Maintenance
  5. Change Portfolio Management

Five Keys to Successful Change 550

As you can see Change Management is but one of five keys to sustainable change success, but it is one of the most important. It is also the only one of the five that has its own professional association and working to establish itself as a recognized profession, complete with its own certification.

To get to a place where you can have a certification, you must have a collection of shared knowledge. In project management, they have the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) maintained by the Project Management Institute (PMI) in support of the certification of Project Management Professionals (PMP). For change management professionals, this is The Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) Standard for Change Management, also referred to as ACMP’s Standard.

ACMP Standard Components

The main components of the standard according to the ACMP brochure include:

1. Evaluating Change Impact and Organizational Readiness

  • Reviews the overall change and how it will impact the organization
  • Establishes whether the organization is ready and able to handle the proposed change

2. Formulating Change Management Strategy

  • Develops the approach for moving an organization from current state to desired future state in order to achieve specific organizational outcomes

3. Developing Change Management Plans

  • Documents the scope, actions, timelines and resources needed to deliver the change

4. Executing Change Management Plans

  • Addresses the implementation processes for performing the change activities by monitoring, measuring, and controlling delivery against baseline plans

5. Closing the Change Management Effort

  • Documents the actions and resources needed to close the change once the Change Management Strategy is achieved and activities are deemed sustainable and maintainable

But managing change is extremely complicated and there is much more involved in doing it well than can be achieved just looking at these five high level phases, so there is a lot more detail contained in ACMP’s Standard, highlighted for you below:

5.1 Evaluate Change Impact and Organizational Readiness

— 5.1.1 Define the Change
— 5.1.2 Determine Why the Change is Required
— 5.1.3 Develop a Clear Vision of the Future State
— 5.1.4 Identify Goals, Objectives, and Success Criteria
— 5.1.5 Identify Sponsors Accountable for the Change
— 5.1.6 Identify Stakeholders Affected by the Change
— 5.1.7 Assess the Change Impact
— 5.1.8 Assess Alignment of the Change with Organizational Strategic Objectives and Performance Measurement
— 5.1.9 Assess External Factors that may Affect Organizational Change
— 5.1.10 Assess Organization Culture(s) Related to the Change
— 5.1.11 Assess Organizational Capacity for Change
— 5.1.12 Assess Organizational Readiness for Change
— 5.1.13 Assess Communication Needs, Communication Channels, and Ability to Deliver Key Messages
— 5.1.14 Assess Learning Capabilities
— 5.1.15 Conduct Change Risks Assessment

5.2 Formulate the Change Management Strategy

— 5.2.1 Develop the Communication Strategy
— 5.2.2 Develop the Sponsorship Strategy
— 5.2.3 Stakeholder Engagement Strategy
— 5.2.4 Develop the Change Impact and Readiness Strategy
— 5.2.5 Develop the Learning and Development Strategy
— 5.2.6 Develop the Measurement and Benefit Realization Strategy
— 5.2.7 Develop the Sustainability Strategy

5.3 Develop the Change Management Plan

— 5.3.1 Develop a Comprehensive Change Management Plan
— 5.3.2 Integrate Change Management and Project Management Plans
— 5.3.3 Review and Approve the Change Plan in Collaboration with Project Leadership
— 5.3.4 Develop Feedback Mechanisms to Monitor Performance to Plan

5.4 Execute the Change Management Plan

— 5.4.1 Execute, Manage, and Monitor Implementation of the Change Management Plan
— 5.4.2 Modify the Change Management Plan as Required

5.5 Complete the Change Management Effort

— 5.5.1 Evaluate the Outcome Against the Objectives
— 5.5.2 Design and Conduct Lessons Learned Evaluation and Provide Results to Establish Internal Best Practices
— 5.5.3 Gain Approval for Completion, Transfer of Ownership, and Release of Resources

Obviously there is a lot more value in looking at this more complete view of the content of ACMP’s Standard than in looking at the five components of the standard. A number of different people provided input into ACMP’s Standard and so there is a lot of good information in it, and I’d encourage you to download it and check it out. For my part, I’ve been all the way through it as part of the research for my new book Charting Change, in part because I wanted to ensure that my new book and the accompanying Human-Centered Change™ methodology are consistent with ACMP’s Standard so that practicing change management professionals can pick up my Change Planning Toolkit™ and begin using it right away to simplify their change planning process and increase their rate of successful change adoption.

ACMP Standard Visualization

Click to access this ACMP Standard for Change Management visualization as a FREE scalable 11″x17″ PDF download

Click to access this ACMP Standard for Change Management visualization as a FREE scalable 35″x56″ PDF poster size download

But the ACMP’s Standard for Change Management, because of its breadth, can be difficult for people to digest and easily access quickly and so to help with that challenge I have created a visualization of the standard (pictured above) as a scalable 11”x17” free download for people to download and share with others or post on their cubicle or office wall for easy reference, with a free 35”x56” poster size version available now too! The visualization will help you see at a glance how the main components and all of their sub-components inter-relate and come together to create a comprehensive approach to change management. I hope you download and enjoy the ACMP Standard for Change Management visualization, share it freely with your friends and colleagues, and get added value from the other free downloads from the Change Planning Toolkit™!

Sign up for Change Planning Toolkit™ launch updates

Buy the Change Planning Toolkit™ NowNow you can buy the Change Planning Toolkit™ – Individual Bronze License – Advance Purchase Edition here on this web site before the book launches.

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The Human-Centered Change™ Methodology is Now Available

Human-Centered Change™The Change Planning Toolkit™ is finally here!

Following the success of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire, it has become abundantly clear in my work with clients that for any organization to be good at innovation they must be good at change.

Not surprisingly, research shows that 70% of change efforts fail. There are many reasons why, including that many people find the planning of a change effort overwhelming and lack tools for making the process more visual, collaborative and human.

Putting my two decades of research together with my project management and change leadership experience with clients, I have distilled key insights into the Human-Centered Change™ methodology and captured it in a new book Charting Change (Feb 2016) and a suite of tools to help get everyone literally on the same page for change.

Get 10 Free Downloads from the Change Planning Toolkit™I am making 10 Free Human-Centered Change™ Tools from the toolkit available as 11″x17″ samples,
Get 26 of the 50+ Change Planning Toolkit™ toolsbut book buyers will get access to the Change Planning Toolkit™ Basic License (26 of 50+ tools) at 11″x17″ size — a $500 value,
Get all 50+ tools in the Change Planning Toolkit™and buyers of the Change Planning Toolkit™ Bronze License will get access to all 50+ tools for individual educational use at an 11″x17″ size — a $1,200 value.

Change Planning Toolkit Levels and Free Downloads

Innovation and Change Speaker and Author Braden KelleySite licenses are available for professional or commercial use starting at $2/yr per employee*, and include access to poster size versions of many of the tools (35″x56″), along with public or private training sessions. Click here for more information and pricing.

I am very excited to share with you the Change Planning Toolkit™, including the popular Visual Project Charter™, Change Planning Canvas™ and many other great tools for increasing your change success!

Increase your consulting revenue or your organizational agility and get a jump on your competition!

Click here to access the Human-Centered Change™ tools

*Bronze Site Licenses have a one-time setup fee of $299. Site License fee based on total number of employees in the organization.

Below you’ll find a downloadable presentation that gives you five reasons to invest in the Change Planning Toolkit™ in case you need help convincing your boss to let you make the nominal expenditure or to fund a site license or private event to train you and your team and trainers.

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Measuring Change Readiness

Measuring Change ReadinessAre you and your organization ready for change?

Too often organizations define the change effort they want to pursue without first identifying whether there are people, resources, legislation, etc. present that must be in place before the change effort can begin. We will explore the circumstances you may want to explore before beginning any change effort and the areas to explore as potential prerequisites to the change program and its eventual success.

During the course of any change initiative many different challenges will appear, and the most successful change efforts will anticipate those challenges and have a plan for dealing with them. Part of that anticipation begins with identifying how ready the organization is for change.

The Change Planning Toolkit™ is designed to assist your change planning team by making the planning process easier with its collection of 50+ frameworks, methodologies and other tools.

One of the keys to change planning success is carefully identifying the prerequisites for change, including:

  1. What must we know? (Knowledge)
  2. What must we have? (Tools)
  3. What must be completed? (Foundation)

This information is captured in one of the worksheets in the toolkit.

One other concept we should stop and discuss briefly is the idea of change saturation. This concept captures the idea that organizations in general, and certain individuals in specific, can only absorb so much change at one time. One frequent occurrence with change efforts is the situation where more than one project or larger change effort may require the same human, financial, physical, information or other resources at the same time. To become aware of this situation and to enable you to work to mitigate the effects of change saturation, you will want to build a heat map identifying the different timing, duration, and intensity of the different requirements all of the different projects and change efforts will place on the different types of resources within the organization. This too is a prerequisite.

Another prerequisite for change is having a deep understanding for what the current state looks like, including having answers for the following:

  • Who is feeling the pain? Pushing for the change?
  • What is the pain caused by the current state?
  • Where is the bulk of the change likely to take place?
  • When did the current state start causing pain?
  • Why is the change being pursued

These questions can be asked and answered during your change planning session, but they must be asked and the answers must be integrated into your examination of your readiness for this change BEFORE you actually begin the change.

An additional prerequisite for change is also having a deep understanding for what the desired state will look like, including answers for the following:

  • Who are we making this change for? Who will feel the greatest benefit from this change?
  • Where will the resources and support come from?
  • When do we need/want to complete the change process by? Is there a legal deadline?
  • What solution would we like to see in place?
  • Why is this solution better than the status quo?

Finally, to be ready to pursue a change the organization must have people in place to look after each of the Five Keys to Successful Change and should be familiar with both the Architecting the Organization for Change framework and my PCC Change Readiness Framework (these are three of the free downloads from the toolkit).

My PCC Change Readiness Framework focuses on the psychology of key groups surrounding the identified change, the capabilities needed to successfully execute the change, and the organization’s capacity to tackle this change effort (along with everything else).

PCC Change Readiness Framework

You will notice that I don’t speak about organizational psychology or culture in my PCC Change Readiness Framework. The reason I don’t highlight culture in the same way that many other people do is that in today’s more social, customer-centric business, we must look more broadly than the typical inward focus of company culture when it comes to identifying the readiness of not only employees, but leaders, customers, and partners too. Inevitably many of our change efforts will have some impact on one or more external groups (possibly even non-profit entities and one or more governments).

You will notice that within the PSYCHOLOGY box there is a common focus on the mindsets, attitudes, beliefs and expectations of the individuals. Culture is incorporated into the psychology realm by focusing on what the shared understandings are around the potential change, but more broadly too. And, finally you will notice that my PCC Change Readiness Framework highlights the need for successful change efforts to move towards gaining commitment to the change from leadership, acceptance of the change by employees, and a desire for the change from customers and partners.

Within the CAPABILITY box of my PCC Change Readiness Framework we must investigate whether our change effort has any regulatory or statutory implications and whether we are ready to adapt, adopt or influence the changes necessary in this sphere. We must also ask ourselves a series of questions:

  1. “Do we need to get permission from anyone to do this?”
  2. “What knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for this change do we already possess?”
  3. “What knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for this change do we need to acquire?”
  4. “What relationships do we possess that will be useful in advancing the change?”
  5. “What relationships do we need to build to help advance the change?”
  6. “What are the enablers of making this change successful?”

Within the CAPACITY box we have to look at where our resources are approaching, or have already achieved, change saturation. This means they are unable to productively participate in any more change efforts or adopt any more change. But we also have to look at the availability of our resources:

  1. Human
  2. Financial
  3. Physical
  4. Information
  5. Executive Sponsors
  6. Space in our desired communication channels

It is easy to take for granted that the organization will have the capacity to undertake your change effort, but often there are capacity constraints that you will run into, especially as the pace and volume of change increases inside an organization. The one that is easiest to overlook and fail to plan for, is making sure that you’re going to be able to communicate your change messages in your desired messaging channels (they may already be full).

There is a worksheet that goes with the PCC Change Readiness Framework that will help you capture information around the:

  • History
  • Capability
  • Capacity
  • Partners
  • Context
  • Leadership
  • Employees
  • Customers
  • Shared Understanding
  • Strategic Alignment (Commitment)
  • Cultural Alignment (Acceptance)
  • Brand Alignment (Desire)

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve gone ahead and created a free downloadable flipbook PDF for people to grab. It was inspired by Braden’s article titled Change the World – Step Two, which was the follow-up predictably to Change the World – Step One.

PCC Change Readiness Framework Flipbook

You will find these companion tools for the PCC Change Readiness Framework in the Change Planning Toolkit™ to download for printing and use in your collaborative exploration of your change readiness.

Get Your Copy of Charting ChangeIn my next book Charting Change we will investigate additional aspects of change readiness and have a special section from one of my invited guest experts in the book, Beth Montag Schmaltz of PeopleFirm looking at several topics including change fatigue, where the change threshold lies, why people resist change, how to reduce change fatigue, how to build change capability, what change capable employees look like, and how you can embed change behavior into the very fabric of your organization.

The book is available for pre-order, and has received several strong endorsements, so I hope you’ll pick up a copy (or one for each member of your team). You can find more information on the Charting Change book page.

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The Pyramid of Results, Motivation and Ability

Changing Outcomes, Changing Behavior

Pyramid of Results, Motivation and Ability

by Braden Kelley

When engaging in a change effort it is important to focus not on outputs but on outcomes. The difference is sometimes subtle for people, but the biggest difference is that outputs are usually activity-based where outcomes are behavior-based.

There are several good behavior modification frameworks out there including the Six Boxes framework from Carl Binder, the Six Sources of Influence framework from VitalSmarts, and the Results Pyramid® from Partners in Leadership that start with the desired performance changes, results or outcome shifts and work backwards.

Six Boxes Approach - Carl Binder

Six Boxes Approach – Carl Binder

Potential Benefits of Using the Six Sources of Influence

The Six Sources of Influence framework from VitalSmarts, a framework designed for personal change has some usefulness as we look at organizational change. Here are some of my thoughts on how this personal change framework is relevant, centered on the fact that successful change happens one individual at a time. The Six Sources of Influence framework looks at motivation and ability on one axis, and how they are affected across three other variables, which include:

  1. Personal
  2. Social
  3. Structural

Taken together they form the Six Sources of Influence (see the Motivation Ability Worksheet in Figure 1) and can be used to change behavior one individual at a time. And it is from these changes in behavior that the transitions towards the new way of doing things begin to happen.

Motivation Ability Worksheet

Figure 1

To utilize personal ability to influence the change will require teaching people the new skills to be successful at the new way of doing things. Consider breaking up the learning into short intervals where you can give people immediate feedback and prepare for people to have regressions back to the status quo. Work to identify those moments where people will be most tempted to regress to the status quo and create strategies that reinforce the new way of doing things.

To influence the change through personal motivation will require visualizing the change for people and utilizing physical and other cues (including vivid storytelling) to help reinforce that the change is desirable. Help people see, feel and believe in the new way of doing things (the desired state).

Social motivation can be used to influence change adoption by turning accomplices (status quo advocates) into friends (people practicing and supporting the new way of doing things), while any attempt to use social ability as an influencer for change adoption will require open and honest conversations to transform people from accomplices into friends .

Finally, utilizing structural motivation will require selling the problem in a way that people are influenced to abandon the status quo (visualize it, prototype it, etc.) and structural ability can be used to motivate people by changing the physical environment to reinforce the change. Instead of using a stick to motivate people to change, consider using carrots and the threat of losing carrots. It’s a slight twist away from using a stick, but it’s a powerful one. Finally, reward small wins and use incentives (carrots) in combination and in moderation.

Devotees of the Six Sources of Influence may find the free Motivation Ability Worksheet useful.

Using the Results Pyramid® to Create New Results

The Results Pyramid® framework from Tom Smith and Roger Connors’ book titled Change the Culture, Change the Game focuses on the importance of building a culture of accountability. Leaders can accelerate the change and results that they seek by working with the bottom half of the pyramid (“beliefs” and “experiences”). The Results Pyramid® has four main components that I would love to show below in Figure 2 but can’t:

Figure 2 would have gone here

Transformational change is most often lasting and sustainable in achieving the desired new results when leaders work to change the beliefs and experiences that people have and ensuring that people begin having new experiences that lead to new beliefs that lead to new actions that ultimately support the desired new results.

I was trying to help bring additional readers to the authors via the Results Pyramid® Worksheet, but it didn’t quite work out, so you’ll have to do without the visuals and imagine how the tool from Change the Culture, Change the Game could be used to:

  1. First focus on identifying the new results that the group wants to achieve after making the change.
  2. Second, ask employees and partners what new experiences they think that people will need to have in order to not only begin to leave the old way of doing things behind, but to both support the new results you want to achieve AND to help them believe the organization is serious and committed to the new results and that the leadership can be trusted.
  3. Third, ask what new beliefs they think that people will need to have in order to commit to leaving the old way of doing things behind and prepare them to take new actions.
  4. Finally, ask what new actions they think that people will need to take in order to achieve the new results that you are hoping to have in the desired state.

In most cases you will find that your current set of experiences, beliefs, actions, and results have achieved a sort of equilibrium or alignment and that one of the keys to achieving successful change is to move from your current state of equilibrium or alignment to a new set of experiences, beliefs, and actions that create a new state of equilibrium centered around your new results. By identifying where you want to move the top of the pyramid, your can start moving the base of the pyramid followed sequentially be the layers above it, and in doing so, prevent the pyramid from toppling over.

Potential Benefits of Using the Results Pyramid®

The Results Pyramid® is based on the idea that too many organizations focus on the results they want to achieve in the shift from the current state to the desired state and that just by communicating the desired results that the organization will see these new results manifest. But, the reality that the Results Pyramid® captures is that in order to achieve a shift from the current state to the desired state, and to achieve a new set of results, you must do more than define the new results you want to achieve. And you must provide a new set of experiences, beliefs, and actions that will help you achieve those results. The other key component of the Results Pyramid® theory is that too often companies demand new actions to get new results, but the truth is that these four things (results, actions, beliefs, and experiences) are organized like a pyramid and you can’t just move the top of the pyramid without also moving the supporting layers as well.

Meaning, that to create a shift in results (or outcomes), you must create a new set of experiences that lead to a new set of beliefs that lead to a new set of actions that result in the new results that you are hoping for as a result of your change effort. And of course by planning out consciously the shift in results that you’re trying to achieve, you can work as a change planning team to identify the new experiences, beliefs, and actions that you need to create in order to achieve the new results

I find this a useful tool to consider using as you analyze the desired behavior changes and new outcomes you are seeking to achieve with your change effort as you go through your change planning meetings or off-site.

Devotees of the Results Pyramid® would have found the Results Pyramid® Worksheet useful but, sigh, you can’t see it.

Conclusion

In this article we looked at the role of changing behaviors in achieving changed outcomes, and how we might use a couple personal behavior modification frameworks, the Six Sources of Influence and the Results Pyramid® to help us organize our conscious attempts to modify the behavior of individuals as part of our attempts to achieve our desired group behavior change and to ultimately to achieve the intended successful outcomes of our change effort.

So, check out the work of Carl Binder and grab yourself copies of Change the Culture, Change the Game and Change Anything and get started!

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Change Resistance is Not Inevitable

Change Resistance is Not InevitableThe idea that people always resist change is a lie, and it is extremely damaging to organization’s seeking to increase their organizational agility.

The truth is that people only resist changes that they either do not understand or for which they do not interpret there to be benefits great enough to offset the costs of their participation.

The truth is also that the natural response to a potential change in an organization is greatly impacted by the level of trust in an organization.

While it is a lie that change resistance is inevitable, it is true that executing change is hard. If it wasn’t, 70 percent of change efforts wouldn’t fail, but they do. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that most change efforts are communicated not explained.

Let’s look at definitions of both words from Dictionary.com to see the root of this difference:

Communication: A document or message imparting news, views, information, etc.

Explanation: A mutual declaration of the meaning of words spoken, actions, motives, etc., with a view to adjusting a misunderstanding or reconciling differences

You’ll notice here a big difference between the two mindsets – seeking to communicate versus seeking to explain. When you focus on explaining the change, you are focusing on ensuring UNDERSTANDING, and when people understand the change, and the purpose for the change they will be more likely to support the change.

We don’t resist change, WE RESIST THAT WHICH WE DON’T UNDERSTAND.

One great way for increasing your ability to explain change is the use of a tool like the Change Planning Canvas™ to involve more people in the planning of a change, which increases the number of people capable of explaining the change and its purpose, plus it provides a visual map of the change effort that explains the change at a glance.

This is not say that even when people completely understand a potential change and the purpose for it, that they still might not not fight against it, but they will be more likely to support the change.
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Change Planning Canvas

(For Illustration Purposes Only – Get the toolkit or the book for a clear copy)

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The Change Planning Canvas™ is one of the more than fifty tools that make up my new Change Planning Toolkit™ that is now available via individual licenses for educational use and site licenses for professional and commercial use. It helps you move away from the incredibly counter-productive practice of planning change in isolation.

Organizations that do a better job of explaining their changes and the purposes for them, not coincidentally also tend to build up a higher level of trust over time, and organizations that do a better job at change explanation and maintain higher levels of trust are able to change faster!

But some people may still resist, why?

Some people may resist your change effort for a number of different reasons, but you need to identify up-front not only why people resist but also who will likely resist. Change Planning Toolkit™ users will want to capture the group’s thoughts on who will resist in the middle box of the People Worksheet from the toolkit and the corresponding box on the Change Planning Canvas™.

Some of the typical reasons why people will resist include:

  • inability to see the need for change or relevance;
  • loss of certainty (includes fear of job loss);
  • loss of purpose, direction, or status;
  • loss of mastery (includes loss of expertise/recognition);
  • loss of control or ownership;
  • loss of connection or attachment;
  • lack of trust or clarity;
  • fear of failure (feel unprepared);
  • see proposed change as irrelevant or a bad idea;
  • feel overwhelmed by thought of change.

You’ll want to identify the individuals or groups who have one of the above reasons for resisting change, and you will want to plan from the start to overcome that resistance in the same way that any good salesperson plans for objections, learns to hear them, and practices how to overcome them (for example, by developing and sharing strategies with coworkers).
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Overcoming Resistance Worksheet

(For Illustration Purposes Only – Get the toolkit for a clear copy)

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In the Change Planning Toolkit™ I’ve provided space in the Overcoming Resistance Worksheet for your team to brainstorm both the groups and individuals likely to feel any of these reasons for resistance, together with space to capture some ideas for overcoming these objections (aka resistance).

The Change Planning Toolkit™ also provides the Five Change Reactions Worksheet which allows you to identify which groups and individuals tend towards each of the five change reactions highlighted in this worksheet and explained in my book Charting Change.. These five change reactions typically occur in a standard distribution (aka bell curve) and you can increase the chances of your change success by shifting enough people to the left along the curve.

So, there you have it, a quick look at The Big Change Management Lie about the inevitability of change resistance and some ways that it can be avoided or at least mitigated, and an introduction to how some of the tools from the Change Planning Toolkit™ can provide even more help.

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The Five Keys to Successful Change

5 Keys to Successful Change

by Braden Kelley

My next book, Charting Change, is a followup to Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire and is now available for pre-order. While my first book helped people identify and remove barriers to innovation, my next book is designed to make the process of planning change efforts less overwhelming and more human.

Charting Change will introduce a visual, collaborative Human-Centered Change™ methodology designed to help get everyone literally all on the same page for change.

The toolkit begins by painting a different background for the landscape of organizational change. Here we introduce the first of more than fifty tools and frameworks comprising that make up the Human-Centered Change™ methodology.

When it comes to organizational change, most people focus on change management and there is even a couple of professional associations organized around the practice of change management, including the Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP).

But change management is only one of the Five Keys to Successful Change:

Five Keys to Successful Change 550

Leave one out and eventually your change effort, no matter how big or small, will eventually fail. If you’re setting setting out to change the world, even a small corner of it, then you’ll want to be sure to consider each of the five keys and make sure that you proceed in a measured way that takes each into account.

Let’s look at each briefly in turn before we look at each area in more detail in future posts, and eventually in my new book in February 2016.

The Five Keys to Successful Change

1. Change Planning

Change Planning is the first key to successful organizational change, and it focuses on drawing out the key issues of the necessary change and puts some structure and timeline around them. You will find you have a better experience and a more successful outcome if you use a more visual, collaborative method using something like the Human-Centered Change™ methodology I will be releasing soon to help you create the necessary change plans, goals, metrics, etc.

2. Change Leadership

Change Leadership is the second key to successful organizational change, and is important because good change leadership provides the sponsorship, support and oversight necessary for the change activities to receive the visibility, care, and attention they need to overcome inertia and maintain momentum throughout the process of transformation.

3. Change Management

Change Management represents the third key to successful organizational change, and it is probably the one most people think of when they think about organizational change because it focuses on managing the change activities necessary to achieve the change objectives. The term itself has some challenges however as the term also refers to the management of code changes during the software development process and its relationship with project management is confused. We will dig more into the relationship between project management and change management in a future article.

4. Change Maintenance

Change Maintenance represents the fourth and probably most neglected key to successful organizational change. Many change leaders lose interest after the major launch milestones are achieved, and this is a real risk to sustained success of the change effort. During the change maintenance phase is when you measure the outcomes of the planned change activities and reinforce the change, to make sure the change effort has met the change objectives and when you ensure that the behavior change becomes a permanent one. Neglect this phase and people often slip back into their old, well worn patterns of behavior.

5. Change Portfolio Management

Every organization will have a broad collection of larger change efforts (digital transformation, merger integration, layoffs, etc.) and smaller change efforts (including all projects) underway or in the planning or maintenance stages at all times. This portfolio of change efforts must be managed and Change Portfolio Management represents the necessary activities for balancing all of the resource needs of this variety of change efforts.

Conclusion

This is the first step in the Human-Centered Change™ approach to organizational change that you can use to help change the world in the series of Big C and Little C change efforts that you may lead throughout your life. Big C change efforts are what most people think as change initiatives (mergers and acquisitions, layoffs, transformations, etc.) while Little C change efforts are any project that you might undertake (after all every project changes something).

If we want to do better than the 70% failure rate that change practitioners face in their work, we must look beyond change management or change leadership, and instead think more holistically about change, and to consider all Five Keys to Successful Change.

I hope you have found the article and the framework a useful first building block as we work together to build a strong foundation for successful organizational change. To be alerted when the Human-Centered Change™ methodology becomes available, please be sure and click the link below to join the mailing list, and stay tuned for the next article in this series!

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