Change Management, Easter eggs and (not too much) Brexit

Having a discussion over the Easter break on an interesting set of topics: chocolate eggs, the Easter bunny and rabbit holes leading to Brexit! For transparency, the discussion was amongst a group of friends having a great time enjoying said chocolate eggs and the wonderful weather!

A few days later, serendipity kicked in when a link between Brexit and organizational change management connected.

The starting point was the realization of Brexit being the largest organizational change for the UK and others, possibly in the last 50 years or so. The future impact of Brexit is, as they say, too early to tell.

The connection became complicated very quickly, then less so equally quickly when thinking about organizational change tools and techniques. The thought was: have these been applied to Brexit during the planning and implementation stages, and would they make any positive difference? I thought they would.

Here are the four tools from the significant number available in the change manager’s toolkit:

• Kubler-Ross’ Change Curve
• Maslow & Herzberg and their work on motivation, potential satisfaction and dissatisfaction
• Lewin’s Force Field Analysis for unfreezing a frozen state
• Kotter’s 8 Steps and Heart of Change

The range of tools, methods and models available to facilitate effective organizational change is rich and full. So why don’t these get used more often? Maybe it’s because some of the models are more than fifty years young! Please notice the “fifty years young”.

When consulting and helping organizations with the practicalities of effective organizational change, there is almost always discussions around two broad areas:

1. People having heard, to a lesser or greater degree, of at least some models but never having used them.
2. The models being “old” and not suited to the digital age/ 21st century.

I love these conversations and they always provide a great platform for a robust discussion around effective change management and ‘pretend’ change management. Let me briefly explain ‘pretend’ change management. What is meant is cost being incurred but the benefits are not realized.

The issue is organizations and most people in them are relatively more comfortable with process rather than people. I realize this is a very broad brush however I’m sure you get the point. There are great, practical process models and methods available. Given the availability and acceptance of these methods and models, why is effective organizational change so often difficult to achieve?

There is a significant body of knowledge supporting a people first, process second, technology third approach. From IBM’s Global Study in 2007/8 in which they identified Change Masters (their term) as the organizations putting people first in change efforts, through ongoing PROSCI Studies to 2017/18 research undertaken by the Chief Executive Board (CEB), now part of the Gartner Group. All these studies validate a balanced approach to people, process and technology, with the emphasis being on people.

Kubler-Ross, Maslow & Herzberg, Lewin and Kotter; their models have stood the test of time and I would bet on them being around for a long time to come, providing sound approaches with the rest of the toolkit for effective change management.

Part of the discussion around “old and new” is in part due to wanting a “quick fix” or “off-the-shelf” solution. Mostly, these things do not exist; never really did and are unlikely to appear in the future. In the digital world in which we now exist – with almost everything connected to everything else and the connectivity being almost instantaneous – rather than searching for the “quick fix”, maybe more time would be better spent on identifying why the change is necessary and the expected outcomes, value and benefits expected. All of this being given more thought and planning before starting the work.

Maybe we should spend more time with the chocolate eggs and less time down the rabbit holes!