Reasons for a short break - Started writing again - will post by Nov 15 !

I was out in the field travelling till the 28th of May.Post which, some additional responsibilities and organizational realignment took up a lot of my time.

I also realised that while I met my 'quantity' targets of a post a week, I was not very happy with the 'quality' of my posts. I also saw myself repeating almost the same stuff

Please bear with me till I return with more detailed posts. My target date for the same is 15th of August

Deciding what to change: Role of a diagnostic

It has always been a struggle to me to clearly establish an approach to identifying what to change. Six Sigma has its X's and Y's; process consultants have their maturity framework...but how does a CEO decide what needs to be changed in an organization..

Though newly arrived CEO's probably don't ; most consultants seem to recommend some form of diagnostic as the first step to starting a transformation journey.

Mark Gottfredson and Steve Schaubert (of Bain), in their book 'Breakthrough Imperatives (2008,Harper Collins) recommend a three step approach. The authors divide the transformation into steps of

• diagnose the points of departure
• envision the point of result and 
• (build) the road to results

The authors build their diagnostic around the following defined rules ; 

• Costs and prices always decline
• Competitive position determines your options
• Customers and profit pools don't stand still
• Simplicity gets results

We will discuss building diagnostics around these rules in subsequent posts. Any diagnostic will need identifying appropriate measures or performance indictors, finding ways to know the existing performance and establishing some form of benchmarks

What has been your experiences with building a diagnostic

P.S. Apologies for the break of previous weeks. I had another 'writing assignment' for my organization !!

Lateral leadership : A'nother' key change agent skill

Another key skill that every person tasked with making change happen is Lateral Leadership. Roger Fisher (1998, Harper Collins) subtitles his book on lateral leadership as getting things done when you are not the boss. I am sure every 'change agent' can recognize the situation

According to Fisher one can achieve a high level of colloboration that produces high quality results through lateral leadership.This includes three basic steps

• Organize and sharpen one's  personal skills at getting things done by yourself
• Understand clearly your strategic goal of an organized way of getting things done with others
• Learning some tactics of participatory management

Personal competency model

Just came across this 'managerial'  personal competency model, published in some manner by the UK Govt., way back in 1997. The contents resonate with my thoughts on what makes one a succesful change implementor. Hence reproducing the whole table . One can use the table to evaluate skills and gaps and identify improvement actions.

The Change Monster : A mental model for org change

Every 'change agent' should have a perspective of the various 'theoritcal' frameworks that has been proposed around organizational change. A realisation of the diversity of the approaches and their conclusions will help a change agent frame his or her response to a situation. I intent to provide short notes on the various approaches in this and some subsequent postings.

One of the 'interesting' frames of references I have seen is that proposed by Jeanie Daniel Duck in the book 'the Change Monster'.( 2001,Randon House).

The Change Curve , as illustrated above, provides a map of the territory of change according to the author.The change curve suggests that every organization going through will change will go through the phases of stagnation( till it is pushed either externally or internally) and should then ideally go through the phases of preparation,implementation,determination and then fruition. 

Assuming that most of get to do things after someone has identified the need for change :-); here is a short list of does and don't in the various phases according to the author

Preparation

• 
  
  Gain alignment
• 
  
  Use anxiety effectively
• 
  
  It is not important that leaders like each other,but they need to be able to work together effectively
• 
  
  Group change requires individual change ; a behavioural contract is required from every individual
• 
  
  Alignment is not the same as commitment and commitment is not the same as getting energized
• 
  
  A ready-willing and able assessment tells us when we are prepared

Implementation

Some of the recommendations for implementation include the need to build leadership strength, the need for informal communications etc

Which other framework do you use ?

Process Vs Functional Organization

Organization structure is one of the key levers available to a leader wanting to make improvements in the organization.A key trend that we see today is the move to 'process based ' or even more a matrix organizations. In the case of matrix organizations also , process tend to be one of the axes.

I do a lot of work in IT function improvement.Many clients are today implementing ITIL as an approach to bring visibility and improvement on the support side of IT. When implementing ITIL, a key struggle has been deciding the balance between the existing functional roles ( say a help desk manager) and the 'newly' introduced process roles (say a incident manager).

In the book,'Designing organizations' ;Jay R Galbraith (2002 Jossey Bass) talks about the type of lateral processes based on management time and difficulty. He talks about various levels : Voluntary and informal group, e- coordination,formal group (ranging from simple to multidimensional and hierarchical),integrator (full time by roles or departments) and finally a matrix organization.

Organizations wanting to implement ITIL are also faced with similar choices. As shown in figure above, they need to make a choice on the level of authority for the newly introduced roles. From a simple  reporting (Weather station) sort of roles (which would then be allotted on a part time basis to an existing functional role) organizations mature and evolve to provide more authority and control to process functions. There exists no perfect answer to where the balance of power resides !


What does all your experience suggest?

Influencing : a key change agent skill

Another critical skill that every change agent should attempt to develop is the skill to influence. On most occasions change agents will have to work through project team members over whom they have no formal authority.

Allen R. Cogen & David L. Bradford in their book "Influence without Authority" (2005, John Wiley) proposes an 'Influence Model' .The influence model aims to provide direction on influencing others

According to the authors the influence model- a careful diagnosis of the other's interests,assessment of what resources you possess,and attention to the relationship-enables one to address 'difficult situations'

The key elements of the model ( see figure) are

• Assume all-the other person or group-are potential allies
• Clarify your goals and priorities
• Diagnose the ally's world-organizational forces likely to shape goals,concerns and needs
• Identify relevant currencies(what is valued): the ally's and yours
• Deal with relationships
• Determine your trading approach: make exchanges

Are there best practices when it comes to influencing? How can a change agent be more effective?

Competencies to enable change: Judgement

As I introspected on qualities that make up an effective change agent, I recognized 'Judgement' as one of the critical ones .Judgement is typically identified as a leadership quality. But given the similarity of the nature of issues ( though may be smaller in scope) that a leader and a change agent has to resolve 'Judgement' becomes critical to a change agent .

Judgement (Neol M.Tichy and Warren G. Bennis 'Judgement' ;2007 Penguin)  is defined as a contextually informed decision-making process encompossing three domains: people, strategy and crisis.

Like a leader,a change agent, entrusted with the responsibility to deliver an improvement in his/her organization must take decisions in the face of ambiguity,uncertainity and conflicting demands.Here is a short list of approaches that can lead to 'good judgement' If you are responsible to drive change through your organization, then, some of these are as much applicable to you

During the sense/identify phase

• Be able to identify the environment early
• Mobilize to act
• Be energized about the future

During the frame/name phase

• Be able to cut through the complexity and get to the essence
• Clearly set parameters of a problem
• Provides context and language

During the mobilize/align phase

• Identify key stakeholders
• Engages and energizes stakeholders around framing
• Taps best ideas from anywhere

During the call phase

• Exercises yes/no judgement
• Clearly explains judgement

As the execution phase

• Leader stays in the game
• Supports those making it happen
• Sets clear milestones
• Gets feedback
• Makes adjustments
• The feedback is continuos

The Six Sigma way to identify what to change

Six sigma practitioners have been pointing out six sigma also provides approaches to decide what requires change in an organization.

If one were to look at what Stephen A. Zingraf says in 'Six Sigma-The first 90 days' (2006,Prentice Hall) six sigma methodologies provide a quantitative understanding of the relationship between the process outputs and the process inputs. The output of a process is a function of a set of inputs of a process (Y=f(x's)). where Y is the output and X's are the inputs. This understanding can be translated into the strategic planning process

Y Return on investment =f(Profits, Investments)
    Y Revenue =f (Quantity Sold,Average Selling Price,Discounts)
         Y Profits = f (Revenue,Product Cost, Business Costs)
              Y Cash Flow = f( Profits,Working Capital)
                   Y Economic Value Add = f(Profits,Capital Charges)

The process of six sigma is designed to identify the most important inputs,optimize those inputs and then control them. In Six Sigma parlance the critical Ys  (big Ys) are a function of inputs.Projects improving those inputs will improve the performance on the outputs.

So an organization attempting to identify what needs to change can use an analysis of x's and Y relationship to decide what to change.
But how does one decide the big Y's that require focus. Do organizations stumble by picking wrong areas to concentrate improvement actions?

Business Model :Key to deciding what to change

As a response to my earlier post of how does one decide what to change in an organization, a colleague referred me to the book 'Confronting Reality'.

My colleague was  pointed out that a review of the 'business model' will enable one to identify what needs to be changed.

The authors ( Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, 'Confronting Reality" 2005) define a business model as a statement of an organization's current reality and its likely-as opposed to hoped-for- future direction.
The business model ( see figure) has three essential components

• the environment in which the business operates
• the organization's financial targets
• Activities of the business:strategy formulation,operating activities,selection deployment,development of people, and organizational processes and structures

The authors believe the business model provides a blue print of taking action.Repeated review of the components of the business model till a harmonization can be achieved will throw up the factors that need to change..

Any thoughts?