The Vargas Group

“Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have—and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.” James Belasco and Ralph Stayer, Flight of the Buffalo (1994)

There is a difference between change and transition. And some companies begin with one and never make it to the other.

Change involves disruption and often frustration, confusion and anger. Transition is an internal human process – a gradual reorientation to the change. The goal is to not get stuck in the world of change but to move into transition where the real work can begin.

However, that is optional!

Author Steven Denning has a new book coming out in fall of 2010, titled: The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century.  I can’t wait. I got a hold of some pre-release notes where he discusses why it is so hard to make organizational change stick. Personally, I think the primary cause for the failure of change initiatives is a lack of commitment on the part of management. Organizational change is difficult and often the challenges are more than they anticipated. When bad behavior erupts or the process just seems to take too long, I’ve seen managers or sponsors be the first to lead the charge back to the status quo.

Decisions, decisions ...

Change management experts caution against that lack of commitment. When an initiative is launched, move quickly, swiftly and decisively. As Denning puts it, “Once organizational change takes off, it will happen rapidly. The process is viral in nature. The idea is a virus that is either growing and spreading and propagating itself; or dying and de-energizing people and spawning new constraints.”    

What appropriate symbolism. Organizational Change that is well planned and actively managed leads to a workplace transition that is truly viral in nature. It’s energizing, even to those who may not have agreed in the beginning. There is nothing worse than launching a change initiative and then losing your nerve – but continue to slog through it year after year, inflicting pain and suffering on everyone involved. Well, maybe there is something worse – to abandon it altogether and then launch the “flavor of the month” change initiative a year or so later.

Moving from change to that place of transition, where those involved in the process evolve from observers to active participants, is the sign of success – the sign that the change has taken hold and will spread to other parts of the organization.

Make a plan, make the commitment and move!

I recently read a great article on bnet.com called “The Five Ways Managers Breed Incompetence” <a href=”http://blogs.bnet.com/bnet1/?p=1604&tag=nl.e713

I have long contended that many employee problems are really management problems. Now, before all you managers and executives get your knickers in a bunch, I am one of you – and I still believe this. And I said many, not all.

One of the ways cited in the article was “Rewarding Mediocrity.” Hear, hear. An organization I once worked for had this process down pat. As I was leaving a meeting where one of the senior product managers had tap-danced his way through a late schedule, incomplete deliverables and cost over-runs, I cynically thought to myself, “He’s in line for a VP position.” Even though I was half joking (gallows humor, you know) my premonition came true within the week.

And just as cited in the article, the impact his promotion had on me and other employees was surely not the behavior senior management hoped to foster. I read the announcement in my morning email, among all the customer issues, employee questions, SPAM, industry requirements, and last, but not least, new requirements from HR for performance measurements. I carefully read the new Employee Review form but couldn’t seem to find the one I had just witnessed: How to reward my charming bottom feeders.

Do you want to encourage Excellence? Set expectations and then manage to them. REWARD BASED ON PERFORMANCE, period. Whatever your organization’s Performance Measurement process may be, don’t allow your managers to skate through it, or worse, ignore it. Set the expectation for them, too. What gets measured, gets attention.