The next i&i network meeting will be confronting the issue of how to deal with the human element involved in transformation: how change agents can predict and deal with the “The Psychology of Change”.
In the build up to the meeting, we talk here with one of the speakers, Mark Pearson, Operational Excellence Deployment Leader at SCA Global Healthcare. SCA is a global hygiene and paper company that develops and produces personal-care products, tissue, packaging solutions, publication papers and solid-wood products.
SCA started its Operational Excellence journey in 1992 with the implementation of a Team Based Work System. In 2003 Six Sigma was piloted and the rolled out in 2005 when Mark joined the company. Since then he has been responsible for the deployment design and implementation across the global manufacturing sites.
Mark has been involved in quality initiatives for some 15 years since deploying Total Quality Management into British Army Maintenance units. He also has a long connection to training and development and was responsible for teaching leadership at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
improvementandinnovation.com: How do you go about communicating change in a way that is understandable and applicable?
Mark Pearson: When I started working with change, the conventional wisdom was that you would not succeed unless you had a ‘burning platform’, the enemy at the door that everyone could see and therefore instant buy-in to the need to change. For us, like many companies, the financial crisis with an emphasis on working capital conservation was an example where we were able to communicate easily across the workforce: reduced inventories equal reduced tied up capital.
In order to achieve this we needed, amongst other things, to change the way customer service representatives were using SAP, change the planning cycles and operators needed to perform their changeovers much faster. In North America and Western Europe there is always the threat of competition from lower cost countries that seems to be in the back of most people’s mind.
However, we are spending more and more time painting a vision of the future for employees: being clear where we want to go and what they can expect to see on the journey. We are using large posters to communicate not just the tangible things people might be able to see – for example individuals wearing safety equipment correctly or positive results – but also behaviours.
What preparation can be made for the human element of change in a transformation programme?
I think firstly that you have to accept that some people will not change and if you are going to be successful then you will have to deal with that: change the people or change the people. Upfront you need to define the behaviours that you want to see after the change. If you don’t do this, you will continually be asking yourself “why doesn’t so and so get it?” Once you have defined the behaviours and trained them out then you have permission to coach.
Are there certain models or concepts that can be employed to assist leaders of change in managing the human element? Both in terms of predicting reaction to change, and dealing with it when it happens?
For change managers, a good understanding of the Conner and Kubler Ross models are essential; the latter has some good tactics to employ at various stages. Change agents also need to understand that their role and style has to change during the change effort from Championing through Change Agent to Monitoring
From your experience, what types of behaviour can be expected?
A large continuum ranging from “at last, when do we start” through to the ‘ostrich in the sand’. I have not personally come across someone deliberately trying to sabotage the change but I have seen individuals say things like “the management team has agreed that we should do this, but we don’t need to do it now…” despite the fact that the person was on the management team himself.
What do you believe are the main reasons for resistance to change? Do they differ from organisation to organisation or are there fundamental issues?
By its very nature, change means that someone has to do something differently and it’s personal to an individual. I haven’t seen any differences between any industry or organisation. My office is a mobile phone and a laptop, yet I am continually amazed by the emotions that are raised when people are required to move offices (in the same building)! For me the main reasons people resist change are a perceived loss of status eg role, responsibility or title. There is often a fear of unemployment but again this is usually unfounded.
How do you overcome them? Do you have a practical example?
We are just about to embark on a major reorganisation in our plants in Arizona from a traditional organisational structure toward a High Performance Work System structure, this will involve more delegation of decision making to the lowest levels and some quite different roles for the managers and engineers – they will be working on mid and long term issues, rather than day to day ones. We have plenty of experience of this, but it is still new to the plants in question. The simple message we gave to the salaried staff was firstly there were more than enough jobs for everyone, many would at last be able to do the job they thought they had originally signed up for, there would be a lot of hard work needed from them but it would be very rewarding – and fun.
When dealing with a green area of the business, what are the critical success factors for engaging people?
Quite simply get out there and talk to them. I am in the enviable position of being in a different location on an almost weekly basis so it’s quite easy to go and just talk to an operator or engineer about their job, and then to compare it with them about issues or solutions I have seen their counterparts working with elsewhere. That way it is easy to build trust and then when you introduce concepts later you are doing it from a credible position.
Do you have any examples of techniques you have used to positively effect behaviours so that people react positively to change?
We are using the techniques propounded by Aubrey Daniels in his book Bringing Out the Best in People, which we are cascade training through the mangers to positively reinforce ‘good’ behaviours rather than just slapping down the bad ones. The trick is not to go too far and treat every example of good behaviour as a major back slapping exercise.
What do you think are the main things that managers/leaders get wrong in terms of dealing with the psychology of change?
My learning from the school of hard knocks is to make sure that you engage the middle managers in the process. I have found it easy to engage senior managers because they are the ones looking at the results on a month by month basis. More junior employees are again relatively easy because they are the ones who have the frustrations and do the re-work. There is a danger that if you train some one as, say, a Green Belt and tell them “we want you to work on long term problem solving”, they will buy in and start working but then you find they don’t have time for their project. The reason is their manager is more interested in the quick fix for today’s issue rather than achieving the year on year improvement. For me, it is crucial to deploy through the line and not have someone coming in and doing the change to the organisation from outside.
If you would like to know more this subject, the i&i network meeting on “The Psychology of Change”, and how you can apply for a guest place at the meeting, click here for more information
