The SPPs and resistance to change...

Good morning everyone where ever you are...

To get our morning on the upbeat mode, let’s continue from where we left off. Before we can even begin to talk and discuss the application of Kotter’s widely used 8-Step “checklist” for managing organisational change, it is pertinent to start recognizing and deal with a term called “Strategic Pressure Points” and for the sake of saving some typing, we call it SPPs. SPPs are the essentially tool to identify the need for change in an organisation. It can be liken to a barometer to measure the air pressure as well as wind direction. In the context of change, SPPs will be able to tell us whether any change is likely going to take place, in what form and from which angle it is coming from. It works just as good as the real wind barometer in enabling us to prepare for storms or hurricanes. Except that what SPPs measure is less fatal to human.

Let’s use the barometer and the storm analogy once again. Now that we know how barometer works (not that you don’t before reading this Blog..), we may want to go a step further. Questions like what causes the storm, what causes the low and high pressure of air, what is the factor that drive the turbulence of air to form, etc. would be very essential for people with inquisitive minds like we all do. So under change management, we can also identify some of the key change drivers that create the SPPs.Briefly, some of the key change drivers that create SPPs include: -

• Environmental factors
• Marketplace factors
• Technology
• Customer needs
• Business diversification
• Expansion
• Need for increased profitability
• Acquisition of new capabilities
• Retention or acquisition of intellectual capital

Now, basically there are 5 characteristics of SPPs that may have an impact into every organization as follows: -

• Business Strategy - the way the organization had chosen to pursue and maintain competetive advantage.
• Organization Structure - the way the oganization divides and organizes work.
• Organizational Capabalities - the skills and capabilities of the workforce that, collectively, enable it to deliver its products or services.
• Culture - the beliefs, values, and behaviours that describe the organization's culture.
• Coordinating Systems - the procedures and methods that enable an organization to do its work efficiently and effectively.

In all, effective change leaders use their analysis of the impact of SPPs in several ways. Once the impact of change is understood, change leaders can begin to diagnose the organisation’s change readiness.

Questions like are people ready and willing to change? Are they able to carry out the transformation and deliver its intended outcomes? Are the leaders prepared and capable of leading the transformation, individually and collectively? Is our own organisation prepared for the extent of the change required? Accurate answers to these questions are essential to determining the awareness strategy and gaining agreement to specific changes.

Effective change leaders understand that individuals assimilate change at different rates. Change overload results when people are required to absorb too much large-scale change in relatively short period of time. Understanding the organisation’s level of change readiness provides insight into what it takes to plan and manage change successfully.

People willingness to change determines how quickly and thoroughly a team or organization can move forward. Change leaders must consider several areas when assessing change readiness.

• The organization’s adaptability
• Understanding the need for change and sense of urgency
• Alignment of senior leaders
• Workforce’s change management skills
• Obstacles to successful change
• Clarifying change management roles
• How well the organization has managed prior change efforts, including planning and communication activities

Change leaders should complete this readiness assessment prior to introducing a specific change. This tool is intended as a general assessment of change readiness as perceived by a change leader. The level of readiness is helpful to the extent that the change leader accurately understands the strengths of these components as they may be perceived by employees at all levels of the organization.

As such, understanding how our stakeholders will likely respond to change is the very first step in preparing to deal with intellectual and emotional reactions to change. When we embark on the journey of organizational change we will undoubtedly encounter resistance. It is the inevitable friction between where we want to go and where the stakeholders are. It is the result of many things but one thing is for sure, if we don't deal with it? It will deal with us. In summary, there are certain conditions that create resistance to change. It is therefore crucial to understand these situations and avoid them. As the rule of thumb, resistance is greatest when:

• Change is unexpected and unexplained
• Expectations are significantly disrupted
• Change in the form of new behaviors or responsibilities are imposed without adequate explanation
• Stakeholder feedback about concerns are ignored

The “desire” to support change rests at a much deeper personal level and is directly related to each individual understanding what the change means to them – not the team, not the division or the organization.

The final analysis to me is that initially, the inertia of change that is hard to overcome. Like pushing a car out of gas; very difficult at first then much easier once you get going. But once you acquire the right techniques and skills, it would not be that hard anymore. What perceived to be difficult thing is just a mind game, a mental blocker and those are intangibles. Think about it..

In future columns, I will write in greater detail about Kotter’s 8-Step “checklist” for managing organisational change. Until then, remember, the world is always changing and so should you.