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November 2003
The Devil is in the
Details...of Change
We have all
heard about the importance of getting all the details taken care
of … and getting them handled right. That’s true for wills,
contracts, recipes, blueprints … and lots of other things. One
subject, however, really needs to have attention to detail … but
it rarely happens.
Moving an
organization from “doing things one way to doing things another”
is a “details job.” The following five parts of the change
process are practically meaningless without the right details:
- New Vision
– if you want to paint a picture of how the
organization is supposed to be operating after a change, then
“seven crisp bullet points” on a page labeled “Our Vision”
will not cut it! For a vision to be useful to help people
understand the desired future, the vision needs to be written
more like a script for a play than a skimpy list of
mom-and-apple-pie statements. Invest in detailing the vision …
or pay the consequences of confusion.
- New Work Processes
– obviously an organization will not work “a new way” unless
the work process steps are altered to enable the vision. And a
high-level diagram of the “new work process” will not cut it!
For folks to be able to follow new processes, they must see
and understand in detail each step that must be done
differently … and they need to understand how the steps they
will do differently fit with the steps that their teammates do
differently. Invest in detailing the future work processes …
or pay the consequences of poor results.
- Roles
– Telling folks that their jobs will “only
change a little” or that “they can derive their jobs by
looking at the Vision” won’t cut it! Think about it this way:
if we want to get work done with a set of contractors, we
would labor long and hard over a detailed statement of work
that both we and our contractors would sign. Invest in
detailing the employees’ statements of work (job descriptions)
as they must be after the change (our internal statements of
work) … or pay the consequences in hesitation mis-steps.
- Payoff Rules
– Telling the troops that they will be
judged on how they accomplish work after the change would be a
leading-edge concept for many organizations … but even that
just won’t cut it! As we would labor over payment details in
a formal contract, so should we invest in detailing
compensations pay-offs for our troops … or we will pay the
consequences of inattention to the change.
And finally,
one place where details abound turns out to have the wrong
details.
- IT Procedures
– Providing the employees with detailed training on the “87
billion” operations the new software will perform is not only
a time waster but a huge miss-communication exercise. What
employees need are the details about exactly how the new
screens on their PC need to be handled when employees are
working on the new work processes … they really don’t need the
other 86 billion details. Invest in detailed work
process-related IT procedures … or pay the consequences of
non-used software.
Is that all?
No, there are more details to complete accurately and in a
timely manner or change will be off target, off budget, and off
schedule. If you are managing a change effort, you cannot afford
to be caught without a command of the details!!
By: Dutch Holland
 Dutch Holland,
CEO of HDI, has worked as a management consultant for 30 years,
helping organizations and leaders manage and implement change
successfully. And if you enjoyed this short article, you'll
love his book, Red Zone Management: Changing the Rules
for Pivotal Times (Dearborn Trade, Chicago, Fall 2001).
Check your local bookstores or read a review at amazon.com
or barnesandnoble.com!
Contact Dutch at dholland@hdinc.com.
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