If You Want Water to Boil, Turn Up the Heat!

NUGGET: Make sure your investment in change is robust enough to achieve your change goal.

In another post, I wrote about one of two major mistakes that condemn changes to the trash heap of failed projects: failing to say NO to a proposed change that won’t add value. The second mistake is both big and common: failing to allocate enough resources for success. Think about this: a group decides to pursue a new strategy or launch a big change. The change is complex and will change roles and relationships and require a period of learning, experimenting, even trial and error. But the resources allocated to the change process are minimal or (and this is very common) people are told, “Do this AND your job, too… and stay within the current budgets.”

There are many big changes afoot around organizations today. The biggest require significant shifts in culture, mindsets, accountability, and power relationships. Think of what is happening as global supply chains put pressure on functional silos and command/control hierarchies. Think of what is happening to organizations and their people as they adjust to the VUCA (velocity, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) environment that smart technology is underwriting.

I’ve been involved in many change projects during the last decades. I put them into three broad categories – each requiring resources and attention beyond the day-to-day running of the business. Some of the changes (I’ll call them T1, transactional changes) are relatively simple to complete and leave roles intact. But they may require training and additional communication about the rationale for the change. Training and communication may be enough to help people get over the change hump of adopting a new word processing program, for example. But, even

though T1 is a simple change, it still requires time, attention, and additional resources.

T2 (transitional) changes are a bit more complicated and require a greater change management investment. T2 changes rattle the status quo and change relationships. They are changes that are complex but have been implemented elsewhere. There is usually a relatively clear vision of the end game and because something similar exists, uncertainty — while present — is reduced. Examples of a T2 change include the implementation of a new enterprise management system, the opening of a subsidiary in a new country, or an organization restructuring that results in downsizing. These require changes of many kinds. These in turn can’t occur unless the management puts skin in the game, spending personal time supporting the changes and funding a good- sized implementation program and a change management budget beyond business as usual.

T3 (transformational) changes, the most difficult and complex, replace the status quo and require significant innovation in uncertainty. These are changes like those in big South African businesses as apartheid ended, or in manufacturing, banking, telecom, and some branches of government during major context shifts, or in global businesses today that are cobbling together complex networks of suppliers and customers and looking for ways to keep them both aligned and responsive.

T3 changes involve experimentation and require significant investments: time, money, people working as change teams.

T3 changes are the equivalent of a state change in physics – a change from solid to liquid, or liquid to gas. Think about what you do when you want to boil water – to change it from liquid to gas. You turn the heat up to 9 or 10 on the stove – a significant investment of energy. If you only turn it to 1 or 2, all you get is tepid water and slow evaporation that doesn’t power anything. The energy investment has to match the problem you are trying to solve.

As you are thinking about your change investments, be sure to realize that it takes significantly more resources to achieve T2 than T1, and yet more for T3. If you are not willing to put the time, energy, and resources into a change project or goal that it requires, it is probably better not to start.

NUGGET: Make sure your investment in change is robust enough to achieve your change goal.