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Control & Change
There’s an interesting blog on HBR today called What to Do When You’re Out of Control by Peter Bregman. It’s written as an example of how we can help ourselves feel better and deal with others more effectively in uncertain situations. To me it strikes right at the heart of Change Management.
As Change Managers, Agents and Leaders we create and oversee situations where people are much more likely to feel that they are completely out of control. As Peter’s article clearly illustrates, this lack of control puts people into a heightened state of anxiety where the smallest trigger can result abnormal behaviour. By this I mean behaviour that we wouldn’t normally expect to see within our workplace or even within our everyday life. I’ve seen people scream and shout, burst into tears and even deliberately crash their car, not just because they feel that their world is being turned upside down and inside out BUT ALSO because they feel that nothing they can do will make any difference.
The emotional cycle of change - Kübler-Ross 1969
That’s why a key element of the role of a Change Manager has to be to explore and develop ways for each individual effected by the change to exert some control over their own lives. And I do use that breadth of language deliberately. Events that we have control over act as a chunk of bedrock to stand on or a life saver to grab hold of during the turbulence of change but while that turbulence is within the workplace, the solution does not have to be.
One of the problems with extending individuals’ control within the workplace is that, like taking a peek at Schrödinger’s cat, allowing individuals to influence the change taking place affects the probable success of the transformation. How do you maintain the clarity of vision required and ensure that the change programme speaks with a single voice while you are encouraging everyone to shout at the same time? It’s a fundamental of Change Management that everyone has to share the same understanding of what’s happening and how they’re going to get there.
So how do you give people control of what goes on outside the workplace? Of course you can’t tell people what to do on their own time. What you can give them is training and development designed to increase their emotional intelligence and help them to feel more confident about exerting control wherever the opportunity arises, in or out of the workplace. Simply talking people through the emotional cycle of change and helping them to understand where on the line they are and the stages they still have to go through can also have a profound effect – understanding something is the first step towards feeling ‘in control’.
If you’re responsible for managing change in your business you may be interested in my 2 day Frameworks for Change Management course.
Scrum for Small Businesses
No, I’m not suggesting that a game of rugby is the way to mange your small business. Scrum is a technique more commonly used as part of Agile software development by businesses like Google and Nokia. High Tech companies are hotbeds of innovative ways of doing things. Developing a new phone is high risk and manpower intensive and the competition may launch something better while you’re halfway through building it. This kind of environment demands that an organisation be focused , flexible and responsive and Scrum is one of the ways that they achieve this.
Scrum evolved in the ’90s* and got its name largely because of the most visible aspect of the process – a daily team ’scrum’. The daily scrum lasts for no more than 15 minutes and each team member has to state what they achieved yesterday, what they plan to achieve today and if they anticipate anything preventing them from achieving this. Take a moment to imagine this within your own business, how long does it usually take for you to find out what everyone is doing and whether they’ve got outstanding jobs from last month because of a problem they can’t solve by themselves? And this is just the beginning…
The complete Scrum system
Scrum also shares many points of similarity with systems like LEAN and Six Sigma – team members pull tasks from the list and thereby take ownership of them; management focus is on removing barriers; the whole team has visibility of progress towards the overall goal.
Scrum’s main flaw is the overhead in organisation required once the task gets too big for one team (more than about 8 people). But this makes it ideal for most small sales and service businesses and for small but urgent projects. I’ve implemented Scrum processes within the context of large technology projects in the past and believe that they could deliver great results within the small business context. If any readers are looking for innovative ways to increase the responsiveness and flexibility of their business – to meet customer needs faster and better – call me on 027 4776 881 and I will come and tell you more about Scrum.
* Scrum references are:
Sustainable Business
Ensuring your business is sustainable is much more than being careful about the resources you use. You need to consider if all your processes and systems will work in the real world, with real-world competition, real-world resource constraints and of course real people inventing, manufacturing, delivering and buying your products and services.
Forming - Business and Technology Consulting, Queenstown, New Zealand
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