This post will be a little bit more “roaming through knowledge” than the usual.
Actually, it is part of a series, first published in May 2009.
But, following the dictum of somebody else, I will make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.
What is the point? Talking about ways of representing and forecasting the expected decisions of groups and individuals, and some projects that try to build a “model” of what we are and could be- be it our DNA or our brain.
And, while doing this, recalling some useful concepts that you can apply in whatever you do in your business and personal life- including when you are on the receiving end of the results of a model.
As usual- theory is converted into (hopefully) plain English, and the examples are from real life and experience in business, politics, technology- and their impact on personal and business life.
PREVIOUSLY
GMN2009: MODELS
Since 1980s, also what once were called “broadsheets” started writing often about models.
Or- how whatever you do (as a person, group, organization, society) can be fed into a model, that can then tell what you are going to do next.
Let’s say that, for the time being, this automated removal of free will is just part of science fiction.
GMN2009: CHANGE
Any organization, or organized group, whatever its purpose and composition, has what could be defined a “decision inertia”.
A practical example.
If you walk, you can stop immediately.
If you are on a bicycle, that is a little bit more difficult.
If you are moving a car, it takes a little bit more usually to stop- unless you want all your passenger (who, of course, are not wearing their seat belts), fly over you.
If you have a train… well, I wish you not to be in front on that train 
Any change has multiple dimensions: time, the environment were the change is carried out, the “stakeholders” (to simplify: whoever, directly or indirectly, is involved, affected, interested by a decision), etc.
In this post, we will briefly see the multiple dimensions of change, and what means managing change.
Let’s start first with the time dimension.
A change requires time, and time is usually inversely proportional to the size and/or complexity of the structure.
If you want, it is directly related to the time/number of “agreements” before a decision is made, and how committed are its members to unquestioningly follow the new line.
Usually, in any organization (moreover when it has an economic purpose), decisions are not taken at a whim, but, transparently or not, the impacts or potential impacts of each decision are carefully assessed.
The keyword is “carefully”: a never ending “yes/no/maybe- let’s see the alternatives” is careless, as procrastination never produced a decision- it is the best way to have any party involved withdraw from the activities.
Why? Because time is money. Better: time is more important than money, as it is a scarce resource that cannot be generated- moreover personal time.
Therefore, a decision of “yes because we know not that this is not perfect, but it is feasible now and can be fixed later at a cost lower than the additional cost of waiting” is better than an endless stalemate.
This implies that the care is not in direct relationship with the time spent on making a decision.
If you have the information, positive or negative, waiting makes sense only if you have to prepare for the impacts- otherwise, it is fence-sitting (never a productive activity).
But certainly what is positive or negative in a change is not an abstract definition.
It depends on the impact of the change itself- on all the parties involved.
So, before talking about organizations, we can focus on the stakeholders.
Quite often, moreover when the decision involves “technical” issues, the identification of and communication with the stakeholders is the weakest part of the definition, implementation, and management of change.
When I refer to “technical”, here and anywhere else in this blog (sorry if you read this already!), I am not talking just about information and communication technology (ICT), or something “physical”, like building a road or removing a park to build an apartment block.
I consider “technical” anything that is usually considered complex enough to require specific training, and where the actual definition of the change is usually delegated to specialists, due to the complexity of the definition of the change.
If you think about it, this is what you consider “technical” in your own everyday life. You would not pull your own tooth out, right? And you would not try to lay down a new electrical wiring for your apartment.
Well, I know- I should have added: “unless you are a man that is convinced that he can do everything by himself” 
As a kid, I did everything, from reparing the plumbing, to fixing wires and electrical outlets, up to repairing a TV and modifying a computer (and learning to knit and keeping a “balcony garden” that was quite productive ).
But that was preceded by a childhood of “creative de-structuring”, like- dumping a radio on the floor to see how it was organized inside (or so my parents told me that I did when I was 3 or 4 ).
This small personal example shows something really simple: you cannot improvise certain skills, no matter how “logical” they seem.
Logic follows knowledge- not the other way around
In “change”, you first need to collect knowledge, and then you can apply all the “frameworks” that your want.
And this is where the correct identification of the stakeholders becomes critical.
By nature or nurture, experts in any subject have a disdain for the simplistic summaries prepared by the non-experts.
I remember an old joke that I was told at the University (Information Technology in early 1980s in Italy was a strange mix of two years in Math+Physics, followed by what was really computer software engineering).
Given three points in a plane (flat surface, not the flying one…), a mathematicians will tell you that just one line can get through all of them.
If you move one of the points on another plane… no lines can get through all three of them.
An engineer will tell you that, provided that the line is thick enough, it will join the latter as well as the former
I have been a software programmer at the beginning of my career and I know the feeling of experts.
It took a long time to acquire their skills, and sometimes the better they are, the simpler it seems to do what they do.
But, before that, I had to explain the complexities (vagaries, somebody would say) of some European regulations to my correspondents at the youth organizations of some political parties, and sell computers to non-technicians.
And, more recently, explain the vagaries of privacy regulations to bureacrats.
Personally, I fault the experts (including myself, when I am there as an “expert”), not the non-experts: you are so well trained, adding “communicating with your target audience” should be a compulsory subject in any “technical” training.
Instead of appreciating their skill at making complexity disappear, some non-experts assume that they do not need the experts. And try to do themselves- before calling back the experts.
It is a typical catch-22 case. If you are an expert and make your expertise disappear by glossing over the details and giving something simple, straighforward, logic, but based on multiple layers of analysis that require all your skills…
… then, the perception is that you are not an expert, and most people instead of contributing will assume that you are irrelevant.
And if you keep things artificially complex, so that nobody understand what you do and what it means, you are an expert- but nobody can contribute.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
But this is were the art of stakeholder management comes into the picture.
Somebody has to identify who is
- affected
- involved
- needed
to negotiate, identify, design, implement, and deliver a change through a certain set of steps.
Why I say that change requires defining first how you will manage the stakeholders?
Because change management is role playing.
The manager is the director, all the parties involved are the actors, and the script is outlined with the customer, but evolves through the interaction between the involved parties, to produce the result agreed with the customer.
Well, if you live in the real world… probably the latter is subject to negotiation 
The result is not necessarily what you expected, but if the process has been properly managed, it delivers the needed results.
If your “casting” is wrong, you end up with calling somebody else to sort out the overlapping recriminations of malpractice.
A personal (and expensive) example of not considering the “normal” parameters of stakeholder management, appropriate for the environment where you are supposed to deliver the change.
When I decided to support pro bono, in exchange for future considerations and shares, few startups and few SMEs in my country, at a time when I was planning to get back in Italy, I constantly found myself in the middle of negotiations and business relationships that had turned sour.
The first part was to remove from the picture the parties that were not directly affected, often by having separate meetings with each party, listening to their complaints, and then asking them: what do you want/need/desire/expect.
Because, in stakeholder management, after “casting” everybody in the proper role, you need also to listen.
A lot.
More than you talk.
Actually- you talk to motivate the others to talk- and to obtain, in the process, information that will help you to better focus your intervention.
And, sometimes, what you say is not really relevant.
It is the listening and exchanging, and the opportunity to vent frustration to somebody that will not be on the defensive or the attack, that matters.
Then, you bag and dump most of what is said- and get the stakeholders again together.
If you are the change agent/manager, you are a living punching ball- get used to it.
Moreover- you should focus on being transient in the environment when you deliver the change.
In my experience, a good change agent is a catalyst, who from day one monitors who can actually take over the results when it is done, and move on.
Why? Because a good change manager has a focus- delivering the agreed change.
And this could, more often than not, ruffle some feathers.
Therefore, the good change manager becomes the “attractor” for all the bad vibe that could arise during the change process, and take it along with her/her when (s)he completes the activity.
As an example: if you try to be a change manager and build your position for the future, you will probably “smooth” over dissent, identify it, and get over it.
Because you will stay there later on.
Therefore, instead of helping to deliver the change and create what was requested in the most appropriate way, according to what you agreed with the customer, you “move the dirt under the carpet”
I could go for hundreds of pages on how to manage the stakeholders- but what is relevant here is something really simple: also if you are paid by one of the stakeholders, you have to keep your stakeholder management separate from the commercial relationship.
I give you a practical example.
Once, I was asked by the CEO of a small company to tell him what I was thinking about the future of his company.
As this was a professional services company, I offered to do few things:
- first, talk with him about how he saw his company
- then, talk separately with each partner
- then, to assess each partner, but without disclosing with him what I thought
- then, to close the circle by discussing with him what I considered the strenghts and weaknesses of his management team, and brainstorm with him the way forward, before using the results of this brainstorm as the “catalyst” to brainstorm all together.
The critical point? I was asked to give what I obtained in point 2 and 3. I refused.
And often, in the following years, whenever I was delivering methodology and training, I was asked to provide the questionnaires that I designed, as filled by the participants to each training/brainstorming session.
I refused.
Why? Because, in my approach, you need to be able to listen frankly, and be more a coach than a manager.
As I see it, managing change is growing in the stakeholders the capability to do without you in the future, by helping them grow in their own role.
It could seem a suicidal consulting strategy. Actually, it used to be the main reason why I was called time and again.
But so far, I wrote about time and stakeholders, and I did not talk about the object of change.
Frankly, for one reason: the purpose and scope are what matters- the content will have to fit inside the process.
If you defined the stakeholders, it is because you understood the “scope”, or boundaries within which you expect the change to occur. And the purpose, or “why” you want to introduce the change.
Sometimes the reason to introduce the change is not the official reason.
For example, in many companies I saw the introduction of a new software as a way to force a reorganization of internal business processes, using the software as an excuse.
In my own country, I lost count of the number of times that some changes in law and habits have been pushed through by using the European Union rules as reason.
Therefore, do not confuse the means used to introduce the change with the purpose.
Sometimes the purpose is not clearly or officially stated, but the scope (boundaries) must be defined to achieve the desired results, public or hidden.
The means necessarily define the economic dimension of the change, but the “fallout” of the change itself sometimes is the real purpose.
A typical Keynesian approach is feasible also in companies: you keep sometimes people busy with projects that you know that are temporary, to keep them busy and focused on skills and approaches that will be needed later on.
Sometimes I also suggested changes that I knew that were not needed, but allowed to produce some visible, positive result (gratifying also those involved), while having a “testing ground” where a trouble would not generate unsustainable damage.
Anyway, the real reason was to allow the development of new skills or attitudes in people that I and my customer were “grooming”, by using activities that were under control, before delegating to them some real activities.
And this applies also in larger change projects, e.g. when you introduce a radically new way of doing what has been done for a long time.
Whenever a change requires a radical modification of the “normal” way of doing, the first changes are actually used to generate goodwill between the stakeholders to be used in managing the overall change.
I keep writing about the “scope”: how do you define it?
Usually- by negating what is not inside the scope.
If you define a purpose, and identify the stakeholders, the scope is where ideas meet reality: better, where feasibility becomes a budget.
Anything new added should be “framed” withing the scope- if it is outside the scope, it requires a negotiation, as a budget, like personal time, is a scarce resource.
Personally, I prefer to negotiate re-allocation of the budget based on priorities at the beginning, if neeeded, instead of adding extensions, as this allows to establish a mutual good-will toward the overall purpose.
If you start “squeezing” every penny as soon as you can, do not worry: it will come the time when you will pay back with interest
It is a political approach based on relationship, but that is my background.
Moreover, it is my experience: and I think that it is important for “transient change managers” (a.k.a. programme-/project-based consultants), but even more important for “staff change managers” (in my view, long-term contractors and employees are covered under this classification).
From my description on “how” to prepare for a major change, you understand also that I try to apply the “divide in order to control”.
Whenever I see a project plan showing a long stretch of time at the center covering most of the budget with just a result…
… I start thinking on how to divide that monster into something that humans can understand and control- and see progressing.
The risk? The larger and longer the activity with a sizeable chunk of a budget that cannot be controlled until the end, the larger the chance that everybody will take a leisurely walk through the activity… until it is too late to control it.
Of course- it is better when you are the one designing the plan- but often the overall purpose and scope are defined well before the people supposed to produce the change not selected, but even defined in terms of “required skills”.
But to talk about management and control implies talking about planning. And this usually implies that sometimes ask me: are you certified.
My answer is a flat: no.
But I designed methodologies based on frameworks like CMMI, and had to study various management and definition frameworks, from ISO9000, to PMI, to PRINCE2, to older methods as “Yourdon”, MERISE, METHOD/1 (I called it “metadone” ), ITIL, SOA and so on.
Yes, also ISO9000 and ITIL can become management methodologies, in certain environments.
Learn and (mostly) forget after use, in my case- because most customers had their own “flavour” mixing one or more, with the practicalities of their own management approach.
But I see a clear value in having a shared methodology: a shared lingo.
If I hear or say “scope” in a company using PMI or PRINCE2, I know what everybody is supposed to mean. Ditto when we discuss how to deliver a new service in a company that uses ITIL as a reference.
The only caveat: a formal methodology is a framework that tries to be holistic. If you adopt a “systemic” approach like the one that I described here to manage change, you can quickly adapt to any framework.
An important skill if you are talking with non-certified people: you are the one who has to understand, not to try to impose to them to use your unknown lingo to explain to you their needs.
Otherwise, you risk that they will focus on looking good in using your new “communication code”, instead of telling you what you need to do.
As discussed in the post GMN2009: MODELS, the point of coping to change is also to consider that change is something that generates friction.
And, as written at the beginning… change has first of all to cope with inertia.
Before moving to the next post (GMN2009: PLANNING), let’s focus on the resistance to change.
In politics and business, but also in your own private life, you get used to something- and changing habits requires leaving something that you know, for something that you do not know.
It could be positive. It could be negative. But, anyway, you are dropping the know, certain, maybe unsatisfactory but linked to your habits.
For any organization or organized group, this is even worse, because careers and structures are necessarily built on stability.
The larger your organization, the more some activities move from being something you do, to being something that you are.
Groups and organizations are not simply what they do- but also their rituals, “way of doing things the
Why? Because change is considered often a temporary crisis between two different points of stability.
Also when given the chance to see the obvious benefits of the change, most people would prefer to continue with old habits.
Inside large organizations, a change creates also instability, as temporarily you have the old order, along with the new one, and some people might be unable to cope with change.
I remember long ago talking with a customer, in early 1990s. They were used to produce software for mainframe computers, and wanted to introduce the new window platform, but most people were not used to the then free-for-all software development.
If you are not in technology: in mainframe programming, your chances of making damages are really limited, as you are given access only to what you really need. In PC programming before and at the beginning of Windows, any programmer had access to any resource on the PC.
Beside the technical dimension, there was also the organizational dimension: people who are there when an activity starts feel like “pioneers”, committed to a cause instead than just doing their job; people who enter an existing structure and receive a “slot to fit in” do not feel the same commitment. It is a job.
If you have pioneers introducing 10 or 20 “slot-fitters”, you have to first explain to the pioneers how to motivate and manage the new people. Give them new skills (those called “soft skills”, or- the human touch).
But not everybody can change the mindset. And you have to consider that leaving behind some pioneers is blow to the morale of the other pioneers, who feel like deceived.
Therefore, a positive change, a new technology, became a short document with a then new approach to manage “cultural transition while growing fast in information technology with a new technology”.
And a multi-year activity.
Because, when it comes to managing inertia, the timeframe of change is reversely correlated to the dimension of the structure.
Or: the larger the structure, the stronger the “rituals” embedded into the organizational culture that you have to manage through evolution, not revolution.
Sometimes, the simplest way is to “spin-off” a unit, where you send few selected people from the “pioneers” with a new batch of “pioneers”, and build a new structure. But this is potentially expensive, as it could bring about an exponential growth of new units.
Introducing a culture of permanent change with pockets of stability is more difficult, but can generate longer-term benefits.
It is not a one-size-fits-all. In my approach, organizational/technological/cultural change come in at least three sizes: pret-a-porter (no accents, so it is searchable…), with limited changes, completely “ad hoc”.
If you have resources, the temptation is to go for the last option.
But, really, as I explained in the part where I wrote about the “scope”, it is a chance to introduce some changes that will generate longer-term value, by breaking old habits, while limiting the disruption.
Change and its management are interesting subjects- and never ending stories.
My suggestion is: that you are planning to introduce some change, or just creating a model about possible changes, try to structure the change (or changes) in subsets, charting then the connections between changes.
All within a defined scope, but also mapping which interactions outside the scope are with a specific subset.
This will allow you to simplify three issues that are involved in any plan or model:
- planning, as you will be able to see when each change is needed, and their influence inside and outside the scope
- complexity, as you will limit the number of variables to control in each subset
- risk/opportunity, as you will be able to monitor for each subset the potentially negative (risks) and potentially positive (opportunities) side-effects
But, as you understand, any change has to be planned.
NEXT
GMN2009: PLANNING
In my definition, a plan is neither cast in stone, nor just an intellectual exercise done because it is supposed to be done.
But what, after defining a model of your reality, and identifying the changes required and their impacts, should be part of your planning activity?
Tags: agent, brain, casting, catalyst, change, dna, expert, gmn2009, management, methodology, organization, scope, stakeholder, technical