One More
Time: How do you manage change?
The honest answer is that you manage it
pretty much the same way you’d manage anything else of a turbulent,
messy, chaotic nature, that is, you don’t really manage it, you grapple
with it. It’s more a matter of leadership ability than management skill.
The first thing
to do is jump in. You can’t do anything about it from the outside.
A clear sense of
mission or purpose is essential. The simpler the mission statement
the better. “Kick ass in the marketplace” is a whole lot more
meaningful than “Respond to market needs with a range of products
and services that have been carefully designed and developed to
compare so favorably in our customers’ eyes with the products and
services offered by our competitors that the majority of buying
decisions will be made in our favor.”
Build a team.
“Lone wolves” have their uses, but managing change isn’t one of
them. On the other hand, the right kind of lone wolf makes an
excellent temporary team leader.
Maintain a flat
organizational team structure and rely on minimal and informal
reporting requirements.
Pick people with
relevant skills and high energy levels. You’ll need both.
Toss out the
rulebook. Change, by definition, calls for a configured response,
not adherence to prefigured routines.
Shift to an
action-feedback model. Plan and act in short intervals. Do your
analysis on the fly. No lengthy up-front studies, please. Remember
the hare and the tortoise.
Set flexible
priorities. You must have the ability to drop what you’re doing and
tend to something more important.
Treat everything
as a temporary measure. Don’t “lock in” until the last minute, and
then insist on the right to change your mind.
Ask for
volunteers. You’ll be surprised at who shows up. You’ll be
pleasantly surprised by what they can do.
Find a good
“straw boss” or team leader and stay out of his or her way.
Give the team
members whatever they ask for — except authority. They’ll generally
ask only for what they really need in the way of resources. If they
start asking for authority, that’s a signal they’re headed toward
some kind of power-based confrontation and that spells trouble. Nip
it in the bud!
Concentrate dispersed knowledge. Start
and maintain an issues logbook. Let anyone go anywhere and talk to
anyone about anything. Keep the communications barriers low, widely
spaced, and easily hurdled. Initially, if things look chaotic, relax
— they are.
Remember, the task of change management is
to bring order to a messy situation, not pretend that it’s already well
organized and disciplined.