There is an endless abundance of books on the subject of change management. However, the reading generally conveys what I also experience as a management consultant in a large number of strategy and implementation projects: The main object of both the practical and theoretical discussion of change management is the “input” and not what matters – the desired result.
Much of the relevant literature deals with singular issues or methods. However, the only thing that matters when it comes to implementing strategies and the success of change is the result that is to be achieved. Experienced and knowledgeable as you are, you will certainly have an overview of the literature on change management.
In order not to carry owls to Athens, I will not tell you here how change management works in theory, but how change management does not work in practice. Against the background of my own experience, I will show you where it usually fails.
To put it very succinctly: It is the experienced and professionally competent people responsible for change management who usually fail.
My five theses are as follows:
1. change management is misunderstood as merely reacting to external changes.
These exist, of course, but internally initiated change is just as existent and important. Both processes must be taken into account.
2. change management usually fails because managers have not really clarified with themselves what exactly they want to change and why.
3. the difficulty of change management lies not in defining the goal, but in the journey towards it.
4. the only powerful change drivers are in the company, at the top.
5 Effective change management requires “commitment” and not “compliance”.
I would then like to explain the second thesis in more detail using examples.
2 examples of change management:
The question of the what and why of change
Change management usually fails because managers do not know what exactly they want to change and why. And this applies to both the “tangible” things (structures, processes, systems) and the “soft” issues (values, leadership, cooperation model).
This second thesis is no small matter! Because clarifying what is to be changed requires time and resources. Once this challenge has been overcome, we recognize in change – viewed soberly – nothing more than the implementation of a strategy to achieve set goals. It is a means to an end, it is tactics. When we say that someone thinks or acts tactically, we generally mean that they know exactly what they want and why they want it.
However, this type of calculated behavior is rarely encountered in change management, where it is more common to have the luxury of leaving things unclear, of keeping things in limbo. Yet change management was and is not magic, not a magical trick.
Imagine, for example, a company that has written the slogans “internationalization”, “innovation” and “partner cooperation” on its banner. What else should these three levers – and they are nothing else – be used as tactical tools?
It is generally not a bad idea to put the cart before the horse and start with the obvious operational levers. However, a clear objective must also be formulated for this approach.
Otherwise you’ll be like Dr. Frankenstein in his cabinet, where nothing but trial and error was at work, trying out what works. And when the thing gets up and learns to walk, you find it terribly beautiful. If the experiment – and that’s what the more or less aimless approach or tackling of supposedly obvious topics is – gets out of control and you feel compelled to pull the plug very quickly, you experience it as terribly gruesome.
A lot of time has to pass before the next attempt can be made after such a shock. And finding a following for the follow-up project is virtually impossible: the legend of the monster has long been on everyone’s lips.
So before you become the creator of a monster, think carefully about exactly what you want to change and why.
Retrospectives help to find this out: In other words, you think about where you will be in one or two years’ time and what exactly will be different compared to today – in your dealings with customers and employees.
Before you even begin to think about change, you need to know what your vision of the future is.
All too often, I see that companies do not have a vision for the future, at least not one that is sufficiently concrete. Instead, programs and projects are busily launched, but after a short time nobody knows why all this is happening. An awful lot is done, but all the actionism ultimately leads to very little.
Here is an example from everyday life to illustrate the problem. Imagine a family with two children. What is the vision of this family? You could argue endlessly about that alone.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that our family has the vision of being the happiest family in the world. A vision – whether on a personal or corporate level – is nothing other than an expression of a raison d’être.
What am I, are we in the world for?
What is my mission as a company?
In order to make the vision tangible, goals must be formulated. This means
Goals must be chosen in such a way that they bring me a little closer to the vision, which in itself is never achievable.
With this in mind, our family opts for the following three goals:
1. a trusting cooperation
2. seeing a lot of the world together and learning in the process
3. a life free from financial stress.
Please note at this point that the vision of being the happiest family in the world could also include completely different goals, such as having a large social network, always being there for each other or giving and making everything possible for the children (see Fig. 1).
Building on the vision and goals, there are now various strategic options for achieving the family goals that have been set. Let’s take just two of the infinite number of possible strategic options that our happiest family in the world has to achieve its goals.
The image of the future, and nothing else is a strategic option, could look like buying an old farmhouse away from any city life, renovating it, doing without digital media as far as possible in order to have as many conversations with each other as possible, living very frugally and with a high proportion of self-sufficiency in order to be able to travel a lot and not have to invest much time in financing any material goods.
A completely different picture, a completely different strategic option, to achieve exactly the same goals under the same vision could look like this: deciding to set up a joint, internationally oriented company, a family business, so that one
a) spends a lot of time together,
b) sees and learns a lot about the world together and
c) has the opportunity to work together in a spirit of trust, as many experiences – including professional ones – are shared, and
d) last but not least, is free of financial worries.
A completely different picture, two completely different strategic options for achieving exactly the same goals (see Fig. 2). In my experience, this differentiation alone, which may seem technocratic at first glance, is so important for successful change management that I cannot overemphasize it.
Clarity about the fact that there are goals that can be achieved with different strategic options is necessary in order to get a feel for the strategic bandwidth.
Of course, our family is in a very specific life situation, a state A, a status quo that is to be transformed into a possible new state B through the implementation of strategic options (see Fig. 3), for example if our family opts for the strategy of a farmhouse in the countryside and intensive self-sufficiency.
You will also notice that a strategy is a target state and does not represent any activities, levers, topics or projects and programs!
Incidentally, this is one of the biggest misunderstandings that I encounter time and again in all companies. And this misunderstanding is often the reason for unsuccessful strategies and failed change projects.
The next question that arises in this context is the strategic gap that needs to be closed between the current state A and the desired state B. This strategic gap is what needs to be addressed. It is this strategic gap that needs to be addressed. After all, it is the only thing that change management has to deal with.
It is to be asked:
- What should be different?
- How does that feel?
- What will be dropped?
- What comes next?
For successful change management, you need a clear picture, a clear idea of the future and a clear inventory of the status quo in order to derive exactly what you want to change and why (with reference to goals and vision).
Both on the “hard” side (structures, processes, systems) and the “soft” side (values, leadership, cooperation).
Without this clarity, any kind of change management may not necessarily be doomed to failure, but it is definitely doomed to inefficiency.
Let’s say our family currently lives in a four-room apartment in the middle of Berlin, both parents work and the “trusting togetherness” is limited to superficial conversations. Apart from the Müritz and the Harz mountains, you haven’t seen much of the world yet, there’s no financial stress, but there are a few savings.
Once you have identified the strategic gap that you want to close with change management, the next question you need to ask yourself is:
How can I tell, not just after two or three years, but on a monthly review, that I am making progress with my “change”?
What are my progress criteria with regard to the desired change, the desired different target state?
At this stage, no measures or programs are required to get closer to your goal. Instead, the first thing you need to think about is how you can feel and see that you are making progress.
This is one of the key elements of successful change management:
not work in an input-oriented way via milestones, activities and projects, but in an output-oriented way via result and progress criteria that are not directly related to the goals set, but to the future state that I want to achieve as a family.
In our family example, this could be the number of farmhouses visited, the number of intimate conversations in the last four weeks or the proportion of time actually spent with the children.
The example on a personal level can be transferred one-to-one to everyday business life. It is usually the case that some goals exist, but often too many, which also remain too abstract. And instead of first clarifying the gap between the status quo and the desired target state, a large number of projects and programs are launched in relation to the goals – without having a clear picture of the new situation and the target state that is to be achieved.
And “surprisingly”, these projects have less and less to do with each other over time and develop a life of their own. Subsequently, there is great astonishment as to why so little has become of the adaptation of sales structures, the development of products and the synergetic design of service innovations and why everything is progressing so slowly.
Progress
