Lost your mojo?

I've written before about the need to engage your people early in the change programme. The need to create momentum through involvement and engagement is also a well established practice. This simple rule of 'engage and involve early' works particularly well if the organisation knows it needs change and has an energetic and engaged population. But what if they aren't. What if your people have had such a long period of stagnation that they think their current reality is normal. What if people are short on ideas and energy. 
What if your organisation has lost it's mojo?

Many organisations become skeptical of change and their leader needs to re-build trust ensuring that this time the change will happen and will deliver what it promises. Teams in this environment will often participate in the debate about what needs to change and have ideas about how to improve the organisation but will do so with a large degree of skepticism. In this case the leader can engage in debate and involve the organisation in the 'how' if they have a determination to follow through and make the outcomes happen. In effect they are tapping in to ideas and energy that the last leader didn't tap in to.

But an organisation that has been doing things the same way for so long that the majority aren't able to see the need for change and can't see past the existing way of doing things, requires a different approach. The question is 'what approach?' 

• Does the leader not only flesh out the vision but bring to the table how it is accomplished? With all the risks that a 'one man crusade' has?
• Do you 'have a clear out' and bring in fresh blood? An approach favoured by many but with inherent risks. (lost knowledge, commitment of those remaining, mood of the organisation etc)
• Do you seek out the few who do aspire to something better and create your guiding coalition from those voices? The risk if they are not current managers, the potential for alienation by their colleagues, their managers and the pressure to conform is obvious here. 

So what's the answer? Well as always in change there is no one route. Everything is contextual to the situation you find yourself in as a leader. The answer will likely rest in a combination of all three, at least:

• The new leader will certainly have to signal change, and be ready for that to be met with resounding silence at best and outright rejection at worst. Be ready to be on your own here!
• Assessment of the key post-holders in leadership positions, how invested they are in the current reality versus their willingness to come on a different journey, along with their capability of operating within the new vision, will mean that new blood may be required in key areas that are the drivers of change.
• Involve those with potential in the redesign and give them roles where they have an opportunity to influence and explain to others. It doesn't matter where they sit in the organisations hierarchy, if they influence those around them then they are gradually going to build a tipping point with you. 
• Of course you will have to give those who are dead set against the change a chance to get off the bus, whatever level they sit at. Some may self select by request and some by action. If this is managed well by the new leader with empathy and respect then the rest of the organisation, those who want to come along, will appreciate your actions. 

Most importantly prepare for this being a long haul journey, with a lot of hard decisions and lonely days before you start to see results.

A Wise King

‘A king with no advisors is king of ignorance.
A king with one advisor is king of bias.
A king who believes all-comers is king of confusion.’

Years ago I worked for a very experienced Manager. He had a reputation for being strong willed and not suffering fools, and if you let him down or exposed him to trouble, you knew about it. He had many years of experience in the industry and you could pretty much say that he’d seen it all.

With all the experience and knowledge he still had an interesting habit. Every Wednesday, at the end of the day, he would sit down with the HR Manager and say ‘What do I need to know?’ and he would sit and listen. He listened to things that were not his favourite topic. He was not a fluffy kind of guy, he didn’t do the people stuff easily. But he listened and found out what was going on and sought the HR Manager’s counsel.

Over the many years since I have helped organisations re-structure and have seen many of the trends in that field. Outsourcing and insourcing come and go, the arrival of the COO and what that means for structure.
I’ve seen the trend to pull all your ‘service functions under one division with one manager looking after HR, Legal, Finance, Public Affairs etc to and its that one that I’ve been thinking about recently after a number of chats with CEO’s and MD’s. Many of these organisations are finding that the ‘Senior Team’ or ‘Executive’ is largely made up of the Business Unit or Operation Leaders, with the one head of ‘Shared Services’ and the CEO/MD themselves.
Any organisation is only going to be as good as the conversation that happens around that table. And whilst alignment is good, over-alignment caused by lack of balance is a risk for business.

I’ve always thought that one of the key roles of HR, Legal, Public affairs, Finance etc was to provide council and be the voice of conscience for their area of expertise. Not just a shared service function delivering functional transactional activity. So keeping these voices away from the executive table means the CEO might not be hearing everything that he or she needs to hear. Expecting the head of the shared function to do this is a risk too as there is no way that they can be an expert in all areas (and didn't you set up their role to create synergies and cost effectiveness, not to become an quasi expert in everything?)

I’m not suggesting that you restructure to create an executive of 12 so that you have all the subject matter experts at the table all the time. But a wise CEO finds ways of getting the guidance that is needed in balance and gives his/her councillors time to give counsel.

Just like my old boss, you might not like what you hear but what he knew was that not hearing it would mean that a problem would arise that you would like to hear even less.

The Legal Minimum?

There are few businesses out there that have not had to restructure at some time or another. Sometimes its because their market has gone downhill and they need to ‘retrench’ and at other times its because they need to grow and re-invest in technology. Either way jobs change and some jobs are removed or ‘dis-established’.

When these situations occur good companies have always worked things through with their employees and managed the change with integrity and with respect for those whose lives will change. Of course, not everyone does it well and in my ‘leading through transition’ workshops I give a few examples that I have seen where distinct lack of empathy was shown.
Its because of those businesses who don't see the benefit of managing change well (and there are many), that laws are put in place. Whatever country you are reading this from I know that you will be subject to some laws that are meant to protect employees from poor management practice. In New Zealand we are no different and have laws that require us to consult with our employees on the proposed changes that an employer wants to put in place. I can see the good intentions behind that idea. A good employer should want to engage with their workforce to work the changes through and would want their ideas in how best to implement the change. In the past, before such legislation, I have tried that approach and honestly explained the problem and opened up discussions with the workforce. Unfortunately it doesn’t really work and that is the first of the two problems with the legislative approach to managing restructuring.
The first thing that crosses anyones mind when you say that you have to bring about change in the business and that means some jobs have to go or change is that people are immediately concerned about ‘me’. What do you think would happen if you tried engaging in a decent wide ranging conversation to explore all ideas and options when you are thinking ‘this could mean I lose my job’ or ‘this could be a nice tidy sum and early retirement’? Natural human instincts of self preservation come in and you don’t have an honest conversation at all. The only person that you have such a conversation with is someone who is not affected. What happens when engage with the workforce in this way is that they soon say ‘You are management! Its your job to sort these things, why haven’t you done it?’
And soon you are back to the original approach of management coming up with a proposal and then talking it through with the workforce.

And then the second problem with the legislative approach comes in. The thing about the law is that it is open to interpretation. In fact there are people whose whole livelihood depends on their ability to interpret it differently and win. That means the law is never truly fixed and you are always looking at the last case and the last interpretation. This means that every time you start a consult you are spending a lot of your time trying to avoid being the next test case because going to court costs a lot of money with those guys who enjoy debating the law that you didn’t intend to break in the first place.
And how do you avoid being another case? By managing your proposal and process as tightly as possible. In fact in many cases the employer choses to follow a line of doing the legal minimum. Its often easier, as the less you say the less likely you are to get in to trouble. In addition you minimise risk by working the possible restructuring down to the tightest option. That means there is not a lot to discuss with the workforce as there are no real options. In fact I have sat with employers who have moved away from the smartest decision for the business, and in the long run their people, because that choice could result in a challenge in court.

Simplistically the less you say and the tighter the options you offer, the less likely you are to be really consulting and that defeats the higher intent of the reason for the legislation in the first place.

Why has this happened? Well, the courts have got wary of people who use restructuring as a way of managing performance and that means many of the actions in court and the decisions being made are to make it tougher on employers who may be trying this. Of course it is another story to consider why it could be easier to manage a restructuring than to manage poor performance but lets leave that aside. The point is that some employers try this route and the more they do so, the tougher the courts will make their testing of cases to see if it was a true consult.
Can we change it? I’m not sure whether we can unless the legislation is overhauled, but it may help if employers restructure when they need to restructure and manage performance when that is required!

The Quake Test

In the last month New Zealand has seen some of its biggest earthquake damage in over 80 years. The impact in Christchurch has been significant and many buildings have come down, homes have been ruined, businesses destroyed and many lives changed forever.

Earthquakes are not unusual around the world so it was not a surprise that Murray McCulley, our minister for foreign affairs, spoke to the UN Assembly and mentioned the fact that, compared to many other countries, our structures and infrastructure did not fail as catastrophically as has been seen in other countries.

You might wonder why a change agent would write about earthquakes!

What occurred to me most, in watching the scenes from Christchurch, was how many of the tales told were about the response of the people and the way that they responded to the disaster, managed the disaster, and supported each other after the disaster.
What I saw was another reminder that when the structures fail, the ability to operate is down to the people. What I also saw was that the structures that did not fail had been designed for the conditions that they operated in. They weren’t designed for downtown London or the Chinese countryside. They were designed to work in New Zealand for the conditions that prevail here. They were designed to work for the people that needed to use them. The structure was for the people and not for itself.

It reminded me that in organisations we spend a lot of time on the way we are structured and we spend a lot of time restructuring, but that the structure itself delivers nothing. People do.

Now I am not saying that you shouldn’t care about the structure of the organisation. What I am saying is that your structure is there to pull people together in to groups or teams of common purpose to enable them to easily and effectively work together. It helps define boundaries where boundaries are needed. It should help define relationships so that people understand the connection between roles.
Organisational structure is not real. It is a self imposed concept and like all concepts it is designed to help give meaning and understanding to the people who need to use it.

Therefore the structure is not there for itself it is there for the people. The structure cannot be right or wrong or have a voice (as in the organisation says). It does not create or deliver. It cannot innovate or design or invent.

Structure shouldn’t be defined to ‘give a manager a job’ or to ‘create hierarchies of power’. It shouldn’t be redefined just to remove numbers from the business, nor should it be an alternative performance management tool. I have unfortunately seen it used for all of these and inevitably it doesn’t reap many benefits

Structure should be there to align, group, connect and make efficient work paths. And the unstated word there is people. Structure is there to support people.

The best test of a structure, and its suitability, is whether it supports the people within the conditions that the organisation finds itself.

Perhaps we can call this the ‘Earthquake test’.

New Broom, Soft Bristles?

Everyone knows the concept of a ‘new broom’ going in to an organisation and making sweeping changes to how things are done.
For some this starts with a refreshed vision/mission and roles on to new company values, some rebranding, followed by changes to the way the business operates (systems and I.T etc). For other’s it can just be that the new boss does things differently and people get used to the changes over time; the vision, mission and values are still on the walls but gradually fade, gather dust and fall off, while the new boss introduces methods, approaches and systems that they prefer and have delivered for them in the past.

Whether you’ve been part of the ‘Industrial Strength Hoover’ approach or the ‘Urban Decay’ methods of bringing changes to a business (and if you have definitions somewhere in between please share) then you will know that the arrival of a new boss or the leaving of a new boss can be an interesting time for employees.

In recent years I have noted that it is almost impossible for a new CEO/GM/MD to do anything other than adopt a new broom philosophy. In addition it is noticeable that there is an expectation that the sweeping starts very soon after their arrival. This creates some interesting changes scenarios for the business.
Firstly the business often goes in to hiatus when it is clear that a new boss is arriving. This hiatus continues until the new boss announces what they intend to do. The hiatus seems to occur because people ‘just know’ that changes will happen with a new boss, so initiatives that take a lot of effort are ‘delayed’ and changes that were part way through are put on hold. People hunker down and do the basics.
As a change agent this is an interesting time to observe the culture as it is an indication of what is culturally embedded but it is often a ‘lowest common denominator’ impression. At this point the new boss comes in and sees that lowest common denominator and rapidly comes to the conclusion that old vision/mission and values are not working (rapidly because that is the expectation these days) and low and behold they see that a new broom is needed.
If the new manager then acts soon after their arrival and takes the ‘industrial strength hoover’ approach then many good things are swept away and lost. This is sometimes because the manager had not seen them in action because of the hiatus and sometimes because thats what happens with an industrial strength hoover. When this happens people at least know where they stand (big announcements are part of the industrial strength hoover) but often those that have been there a while suffer the ‘we’ve done this before’ feeling as similar things come out in the new vision/ mission values.
If the new manager adopts an urban decay approach people have to be light on their feet and swift to learn what is acceptable and expected. Hiatus is swapped for confusion and concern as people try to work out what bits of the old are acceptable and which aren’t.

There are many other impacts on an organisation as a result of management change, but the real question is ‘how do you reduce the negative and maximise the positive?’

I believe that new leaders need time to observe and learn about their organisation. There are many conversations required before people stop treating them like a new boss and really speak their mind. The new manager has a lot of testing (and often indirect) questions to ask over a number of weeks to find out what parts of the vision are working, whether the organisation is functioning in line with that vision and whether departments/ divisions and teams are aligned, playing their part , etc. They need to stand outside and observe the culture in action and see what is positive about it and what isn’t. They need to assess the capability and fit of their people, the systems, processes and ways of working. They need to signal to the organisation that they are looking and learning and that they want everything to continue as it was before they arrived and that includes initiatives and change programmes.
They need to manage the tension between the board’s desire for swift and immediate action and the need to find out what the right actions are. They cannot take forever to decide but nor can they decide in their first few weeks.

They need to be a new broom with soft bristles.

What Restructuring Isn't

At some point every leader considers restructuring their organisation/their division or their team. Getting restructuring right is one of the biggest challenges of any leaders life (and if you are sitting there thinking ‘whys that, just give everyone a new organisational chart and its done’ then we need to talk). In this blog I will share a few quick comments on what restructuring isn't

A Panacea
Structure change isn’t a way of solving all of the organisations problems. It doesn’t dissolve inter-team conflict. It doesn’t improve communication between people or solve interpersonal issues.It doesn’t speed up work flow or improve efficiency. It doesn’t deliver better results, new ideas or new products. It doesn’t make poor performers good performers.
Structure is a just a way of grouping people together to deliver the purpose of the organisation. Each part of the structure should exist to deliver something that contributes to the overall purpose. For the structure to work everyone should be clear what the purpose of their little bit of the organisation is there for. Structure is just another tool in your process armoury. If you have inter-team conflict take a look at the leaders. If you have poor communication between people, take a look at your leader’s and your communication systems. If you have inefficiencies or work flow problems look at the processes that you use. Once you’ve improved processes you may find that your structure needs changed to reflect the change’s to the process. Improved work flow often means a change in purpose for an individual or a group. And that's a good reason for changing structure.

A Pay Grade
Structure should never be built around existing leaders to justify their salary or worst still their existence. I’ve seen many structure changes go wrong because a group of employees were added in to the reporting line of someone who ‘needed more to do’ or ‘needed protected from the owners’ etc. If you want to build a shared services area then do so, but understand what comes along with running shared services. But don’t make HR report to your finance director because they ‘need somewhere to live’ or because she only has three other reports. The purpose of a finance director isn’t often compatible with the purpose of HR (unless your people policies are all about compliance and risk). Where teams live in the structure tells them what you think about them. A Sales division is exactly that, a group of people whose role is to sell. Similarly Marketing, Manufacturing, Finance etc. Structure is just a way of grouping people with a common purpose. That commonality means something and to many people it is part of their sense of belonging. Move people to somewhere that they know does not have a shared purpose and it means that you did not care where they belong and watch the performance plummet.

Spring cleaning
Structure change isn’t a way of getting rid of people that are not performing. You have performance management systems for that. I cant tell you how many times I have been given a list of people ‘to go’ as part of a restructuring. These people have apparently been under-performing ‘for years’, but for some reason their annual appraisal says otherwise. All this means is that their manager doesn’t want to have the hard conversation with them or to coach them in the area they aren’t performing in or to follow the due process of performance management according to the company rules and national legislation. Makes you wonder why they get a managers pay doesn’t it!

Easy
Structure change isn’t easy. It isn’t about a new organisational chart being handed out and then everyone shuffling desks. You can’t just move people from an under-performing division to one that has been performing and hope that they catch the performance virus. Structure change isn’t something that will ‘sort itself out eventually’.
People need to understand ‘why’ the change. They need to understand that their purpose has changed and not just their boss. They need new expectations. If you don’t give them all this they will keep on doing what they were doing and that will produce the same result (at best) that you had before the structure change.
There are risks in structure change. Go in to one without a risk analysis at your peril.
You need a plan, for no other reason than for your people to see that you are in control of this, you do know what you are doing and you should be trusted to make decisions about them. You also need a plan so that you know where to turn to when there are hiccups (there will be).
You need good, solid, robust communication and feedback channels.
You need patience for the long haul. Structure change takes a while to bed in and to work.
You need empathy for the people whose lives you are throwing up in the air.


In my time I have seen organisational reputation improve as a result of structure change. I’ve seen employee engagement increase immediately after a structure change. I’ve seen increased business results after a structure change. These were nothing to do with the change, but the way the change was managed.

Restructure the right way for the right reasons and I hope that you too can get the right results.

Ready to play Poker?

Preparation for successful change is vital, particularly if you are restructuring. If you are changing peoples jobs you are changing a big part of their life so you need to be sure of the proposed changes, whether they be the purpose of the role, it's scope or the big one-whether the role is actually needed.

That prep takes a little time if you want to manage the change well. Its not always about having the decision worked out fully (and of course your local laws on consultation changes of employment will govern a lot of that), its about prepping your managers for the questions they will face, the risks that might occur and the impact on people of a change.

I am not going to blog on that today, but the aspect I wanted to raise was the impact on your managers of walking around with all this information in their heads before the change is announced.

Its hard going to meetings and keeping the intentions of those meetings secret. Its hard to manage the questions that come your way; the ‘What are you up to boss?’ questions. Its even harder to look at people whose lives you are affecting without that showing or the new reality that is in the managers head from creeping in to the conversation. I have heard managers begin to talk about duties, that were being worked up in new job descriptions behind the scenes, as if they were a reality. I have known managers who began thinking that people had begun to suspect something, so in turn they began to suspect that people were looking at their files. I have met managers who tried to hide every moment of he day so that they did not bump in to anyone in the corridor in case they were asked a question.

If your organisation recognises that people truly are their biggest asset, you will be aware of the impact of change on the receivers and you will possibly prep leaders in how to deliver announcements of change, manage bad news etc (if you don’t then contact me!). So if you are doing that its maybe not a big leap to recognise that you need to prep your managers for the pre-announcement phase. How they handle themselves, how they deal with the possible stresses of knowing what they know and how they deal with curious questions that come their way before they are ready.

Not everyone has a poker face. Not everyone can separate themselves from the emotion of the change, not everyone can handle questions smoothly on the run. Not everyone is a born change manager (managers don’t do this every day, thats what people like me are for).

Are your managers ready with their poker faces? Or do they need prepared?

So you think you survived the recession?

As governments around the world begin to announce that the ‘corner’ is about to be turned and that the worst of the recession is over, you would think it a good time for organisations to breath a sigh of relief and relax a little. Lets face it, a number of your companies have gone and some businesses will have seen competition disappear.

But before you break out the champagne its maybe time to take stock and ask ‘how good a shape are we in?’ Here are four quick “health check’ questions that you may want to ask of your business or your team, however big or small.

Body Mass Index
A lot of businesses survive recession by cutting. Taking out staff numbers, reducing spending, stopping maintenance etc. If this goes too far this can leave you without the right people to take advantage of the opportunities that will now present themselves, with plant/equipment downtime just as you need it or systems that are more out of date than the competition. Sure, you had to do this to get through the bad times, but don’t ignore the choices you had to make. If you made them for good reason you knew the possible impact that they had. Now is the time to look hard at those choices and see what you will need to do in the coming months to get back in to shape so you can last in the long run. Of course if you didn’t take the opportunity to look at the shape of your business and get clear on what is core for your organisation you may be unhealthily slow to recover and need to shed a few kilo’s just as everyone else is getting in the starting blocks!

Flexibility
Those that survive hard times often do so because they have improved the agility of the organisation. Often rules are relaxed to allow opportunities to be taken. Bureaucracy and red tape are trimmed while people are encouraged to ‘go-get’. There are two sides to this as times improve. One view would be that you want agility at all times, and the other would be that too much agility means increased risk (shortcuts, compliance, not checking etc.). If you’ve learnt to be agile, you may have tested your old rules and systems to see what you really need to run your business and now you know what the new rules for the organisation should be. Before you put back the old constraints it is a good time to test what you might have learnt.

Eyesight
During good times it is easy to lose focus on what is core to the business by picking up whatever come the way of your business because they represent an opportunity to make a bi more profit. During leaner times you need to be really clear on the focus of your business or team to maximise what you are really good at, and where you can succeed in the marketplace. Did you use the recession as an opportunity to tune up your eyesight and get a focus on where you can succeed in the marketplace?

Blood Pressure
How have the people in your organisation come through the last year? I’ve heard from people who are covering two jobs and doubling their travelling! and others who have been doing very long hours. Is everyone coping? are they tense or overstressed? People who are tired, worn out or stressed tend to ‘just get by’ and lose their sharpness. At the very worst they start dropping off with health issues just as you need them to be fighting fit. If they’ve lost their vigour it may be time to re-motivate them or it may be time to take a look at the working hours habits that they have built up for you in the bad times. If you want to be healthy in a year’s time, nows a time to check the pulse and see if its strong!

We'd love to hear your ideas on a health check list for teams/organisations that are coming out of the marketplace!

As you sow so shall you reap?

Have you ever seen a change initiative struggle? Or have you ever had difficulty getting the traction or keeping the momentum behind an idea that you are trying to implement with your team or business? Most of us can see what needs changed, some can see how to initiate that change, but not all of us can see how to maintain the change once the programme is going.

You’ve probably heard the maxim ‘What gets measured gets done’. I’ve always found that it is one of the keys to maintaining momentum in change. Keep an eye on the progress of all the measures associated with, not only the targeted outcomes of the change initiative, but the inputs and activities that you have decided will drive those changes. This means that you always have something that keeps people connected to the change and reinvigorated when necessary.

But I’ve often found that measures are not enough and that the maxim is not always true, and that leads me to think that there is another side to this maxim.
A few years ago I was asked to talk with an organisation that was well down the path of changing their business model. They had moved from a regional sales model to a national model and like most organisations at that time were able to do so with the advent of improved telecommunications and call centre technology. That meant that they could make their change while still maintaining their regionalised employees. This should have meant that they got the best of both worlds, local knowledge where required and minimising of downtime that would happen in a purely regional call centres .
They had put in all their measures throughout the call centre’s but were not seeing any real traction. In fact what they were seeing still reflected a regional approach to sales and support. The natural conversation was around changing mindsets and how to do that.

Then I asked the question ‘How are the regional GM’s rewarded?’.

I’d noted that they had retained the existing structure with the previous regional GM’s leading the staff in the regional offices to meet the new national vision and measures. I was beginning to wonder if, from the staff perspective, there had been no change (same boss, same office, same job etc.).

The answer to the question was ‘ Their bonus is based on the sales and service figures for the region’. It turned out that there had been some contractual difficulty involved with changing the GM’s reward structure so it wasn’t changed. After all these were senior people, they’d bought in to the strategy and the vision hadn’t they?

On such a decision and such a sweeping belief a highly expensive change initiative was floundering. By assuming that leaders would put the business before their pockets they’d missed the basic’s of incentivised pay. The leaders were leading the organisation in line with the incentives first and the national measures second.

So the measures meant nothing, because the incentives weren’t linked to the measures.

Look at your organisations struggles today and ask yourself ‘am I rewarding the things that I am asking my leaders to deliver?’ If you want profit don’t just reward on market share or volume. If you want engaged people do you have some reward linked to the measures or actions involved in your engagement strategy. If you want quality make sure you don't just pay on output.

Our maxim should be ‘Incentivise what you measure and it gets done’.

Low hanging fruit give you stomach ache?

Taking the ‘low hanging fruit’ is a well established change management phrase. The idea is to tuck some 'easy' results under your belt to get some traction in your change initiative.

I'm all for building belief throughout the organisation by demonstrating that the promised change is happening. It's core to all my change work, as many people aren’t instant converts and need to see change to believe in it. But the trouble with stock ideas that anyone can latch on to, is that people can think they know what the phrase means without having any depth of knowledge behind the meaning. Watching CSI doesn't make you capable of investigating a crime for example, even though you will hear a lot of ‘real’ terminology. I wonder whether ‘low hanging fruit’ has become misunderstood or misused?

The key to low hanging fruit is to know that the fruit is good for you. Just as nature can hide poison in a pretty casing, organisational low hanging fruit may look tempting but may not be helpful for the change you need.

How often have you seen a new leader declare that a particular thing is to be changed & then find themselves embroiled in associated issues? Often an obvious change has many less obvious threads attached to it e.g. connected processes, IT patches or previously agreed HR entitlements. Picking that first thread can quickly start to unravel the organisation and take up too much of the leader’s time. Soon you find that change then dictates the changes that follow and ultimately, more patches, more process fixes and addendum's to HR agreements and not the reengineering the leader envisioned, promised the board and was brought in for.

So how can ‘low hanging fruit’ go wrong and how can you avoid it?

The world we live in expects results rapidly and sometimes immediately (I coach executives in their first 90 days and find that many organisations believe that 90 days is way too long and want strategic decisions in weeks!). This can mean that there is pressure to achieve a quick result and quick results are sought in the ‘obvious’ rather than ‘the best’. Picking the obvious low hanging fruit may mean that you stay on the outskirts and don’t walk further in to the forest and find the more nourishing options.

If you want to avoid the problem you have to remember some good change principles. One of those is diagnosis. Whether the change is to processes, culture, systems, structure (and if you want real change you cant do one without the other, but lets not digress), you need to take a good look at what the organisation does, how it does it and why it does it that way. Unfortunately diagnostics take time, effort and a bit of investment, and all of those are often in short supply. But don't let that get in the way of the principle of taking a good look at the business before you kick off the change.

If the benefit of low hanging fruit is to demonstrate that change is happening so that your people engage with change and therefore get more impetus to the change then each change that you make needs to be one you’ve promised and each change must be an obvious contribution to the overall purpose of the change programme.

To state that simply, why pick a peach when you’ve promised an apple pie!

So get clear on your vision, diagnose what you have, look at what needs changed and lo and behold the really beneficial low hanging fruit will become more obvious to you.
Then when you pick it, everyone will know why you’ve picked it and your change programme gets the credibility that low hanging fruit is meant to get you.

And no stomach aches!

Change in a difficult climate

In difficult economic times most organisations face some form of change. It is predictable that with potentially lower profits most companies will look to fixed cost reductions and that normally means staff cuts.

Staff cuts are often seen as the easiest change to make and for many managers staff cuts are the automatic reaction to any tightening in any market. These are threatening economic times and the move to staff cuts in more obvious, however in good times it is often baffling that value and growth creating opportunities are forsaken because of the pursuit of fixed cost reductions. Those of us that survived the slash and burn approach to change in the 1980's know that many CEO's made their name on short term margin improvements that had long term lasting damage to the company's ability to grow; key knowledge was lost through early retirement policies, retention of "cheaper" staff also meant lower performance and the cutting of development of good leadership skills.

In bad times this short term versus long term argument is harder for most companies, particularly if survival is at stake. However it is easy to get sucked into panic measures and make the wrong moves for the right reasons. Not everyone is going to the wall, but most will be looking at job cuts to maintain margins in the coming months.

If you've lived through economic cycles before, you have that experience to draw on and you will have seen the right and the wrong way of making those decisions to cut numbers. If you were in junior positions then and now you are in a role that is responsible for delivery, it's a good time to remember all the decisions that you saw which had devastating effect (the ones where you said "when I am a manager I wont do that"). Its very different when you are under pressure from your board or from the shareholders to make the right decisions for the longer term when perhaps their perspective is short term position or shareholder value.

The key thing to remember is that a cycle is exactly that. There is an end to it. Smart companies are using the current climate to take a look at where they may have got a bit fat in the past few years and where they are performing or not performing. Really smart companies are looking at the opportunities that the cycle brings them. Often those that make the smartest moves during the downturn come out of the cycle in the best position to take the larger market share from those that made short sighted decisions. For example, those companies who take a "we can fire them when we dont need them and hire them when we do" find that it takes longer to recover because they don't have talent in place when the market begins to open up again. Being in the best position to take opportunities as they open up is vital to coming out of the cycle in a healthy position.

Often a downturn will provide opportunities to increase market share unexpectedly. That market share might not bring in the revenue that it did a few years ago but it will do on the upturn of the cycle. If a competitor fails in the downturn, are you in a position to take up their share and service their customers in a way that you hold them on the upturn? You wont be if you've cut your key staff to the absolute minimum. Yes of course you can pick up the failed competitors staff if needs be (and I have heard this argument on many occasions). But is this the time to set about converting a large group of people from the culture they knew to your "way of doing things" and do you really want to service a new customer with exactly the same people who looked after them but failed? Having key performers able to absorb new business effectively into your systems & processes is the only way to really take the market share and hold it.

The failure or possible weakening of a competitor is often an opportunity in itself, but be careful. There are many examples of take-overs whose intention was to grow the company out of problems. Some of these were vanity take-overs boosting the ego of the CEO or the board but some of these were just poorly informed decisions. A take over is a massive programme of change. To integrate the new business with yours is a massive challenge to your culture, your systems and your leadership. It takes considerable effort and resource (and dare I say specialist help) to achieve. Acquisition is a skilled path and needs to be entered in to strategically with your own house in order. If your stock system is inefficient and wasteful then the addition of a vast array of new stock is not really going to help, and who knows it may even destroy the profitability of the business that you bought.

These are good times to get your house in order but the key is to make the best moves to maintain the opportunities of tomorrow and being ready for change should the cycle throw a growth opportunity your way:

• Trim your excess fat well. Look at your business performance with a cynical eye and see who has performed well and who let the market perform for them.
• Don't mandate percentage cuts across the whole business. It may seem easier to ask for a 15% staff cut from every manager but not everyone had 15% fat. This is a good time to really review your business.
• Look hard at your pet projects. Every business has something that the board or the CEO just liked the idea of. If they are not performing or not for this market at this time, shelve them or drop them.
• Get clear on your strategy and the KPIs for the downturn. Make sure your people understand them and know that they are for the short term. Clarity is sound leadership at the best of times but in hard times it is vital that everyone is rowing the ship in the same direction.
• Raise your leadership game. Now is not the time to resort to command and control management style (or even worse, management by fear). Motivated people will find solutions to the problems you face if you ask them.
• Keep your dialogue up, maximise your communication and draw on the talents you have with an inclusive approach. The more people understand the better they can do.
• If you do have to cut numbers, do it well. A downturn is no excuse to text people to tell them they have lost their job! Remember that those who stay will judge your leadership by how you treat those that go. Manage redundancy badly and you will notch down the commitment of those that stay behind.
• Educate your managers in leadership of change and an understanding of what people go though during change (ask us about our programme on Leading though transitions) and educate your people in dealing with the impact of change. After all, change is likely to be an important part of their lives in the coming years.
• Be aware that people will always try to look busy. If someone has less to do because your market has shrunk its not necessarily their fault. Work with them on focusing their time well.
• Work hard on morale. You cant afford big bonuses or celebratory parties today so get creative on what you can do. It's a good time to write personal notes to people to recognise their efforts and walk around a little more and show some presence. A hands on touch can lift morale (as long as you dont spread doom & gloom)
• Use enforced changes to your advantage by also improving the culture of the organisation in the process. Any well managed restructuring programme will have a solid communication approach, so use this to get across more than just the minimum of consultation
• Don't forget your values. Now is not the time to ignore what the company stands for . If you drop them now and operate in a completely different way don't expect people to believe them tomorrow when things are good again. Values are there to guide your leaders in how they should behave in bad times as well as good.

Change in difficult times needn't always be bad. In fact good leaders take the adversity of the situation and use it to their advantage to improve morale, embed their culture, improve leadership skills and raise the games of people with potential. Go in to your change with an opportunistic and positive mind-set and you you may find that you achieve exceptional results.

Ultimately the challenge of change in difficult times is a test of good leadership. Making good decisions for the short-term while maintaining the long term for the business is vital to your legacy for the business and to the reputation that you and the company carry forward.

If you are planning change, make sure you are well supported and if nothing else remember the words of Anton Chekhov.."If you cry 'forward' you must make clear the direction in which you want to go"