K3 Insights

There are very few businesses we are working with right now that are not going through some form of change. This may take the form of minor tweaks that help teams to be more efficient, however, we are seeing a lot larger, organisation-wide processes that have significant change consultation considerations. This article is not about the formal steps to take for consultation/confirmation of structural changes, especially as there is so much process-related information and highly skilled HR practitioners to support these processes.

What I did want to reflect on are three things that we see different organisations and their leaders do to enable a successful change process (acknowledging the difficulties surrounding the impacts on people’s livelihoods).

1. Incorporate the Culture – too often people see culture as sitting outside their strategy, structure, processes, etc., rather than seeing it as both a result and a driver of the decisions made inside an organisation. As such, through any change process, leaders need to be cognisant of the current culture, the influence this has on the organisation, and which elements need to remain versus which elements need to be challenged as part of the change. While the process surrounding the structure consultation can be relatively short, leaders will need to stay the course, considering all of the required elements in a culture change roadmap – e.g. ongoing communications, behavioural role modelling from leaders, process changes to enable greater collaboration amongst teams, increased focus on consequence management if activities are not being done well, etc. If culture is not a consideration within your process, then from experience, you will not achieve the desired outcomes.

2. Involving the Team – too often I see the ‘secret society’ of senior leaders get together to plan out the change, roll it out, and wonder why they get so much misaligned feedback, implementation takes longer, and outcomes are not as expected. If possible, I think great outcomes can be achieved through co-design – while it might take a little more time upfront, employee understanding, commitment, and speed of implementation are drastically improved. Prior to embarking on this approach, there are a number of questions to ask yourselves. Some are listed below. These help to shape where and how co-design can be achieved. If I think about the 100+ changes I have personally been involved in over my career, where it was possible to incorporate co-design, it has had a far more positive impact on the outcomes, sustainability, and success of any change.

•  How open can you be with employees about the intent and outcome of the project?
• How much has already been decided and where would their input be advantageous?
• What is the risk of involving/not involving the team in a meaningful way?
• What knowledge do they have to impact the work in meaningful ways?

3. Structure alone will not drive fundamental change – while making structure change will potentially allow you to strip out some immediate costs within an organisation under pressure, it does not fundamentally change the way work is done. We have a number of examples where organisations have removed teams or people, only to find that business performance and customers now suffer, as it was those people who were holding a process together. Just like my first point, when creating your change plan, don’t be so myopically focused on the structure consultation process that you forget to factor in:

• What key processes need to be reviewed and redesigned to not only create better outcomes but also to understand where all the revised activities now sit within any new structure?
•  Are you clear on how effective current technologies are, and what is the investment plan to help address gaps?
• Do you have all the necessary capabilities to operate the new structure, processes, and technology? If not, what is your plan to develop from within or source externally?
• Do you have the leadership (capacity, capability, and confidence) to take the organisation to the next stage of its evolution, or do some hard conversations need to be had to reshape the leadership team?

You can have a robust structure change process, follow all the required steps and get through it without any Personal Grievances; however, the mark of success is, will you change the organisation in the way that is needed if you don’t have a broader focus and incorporate some of the ideas here?