Effective change management is driven by a clear sense of
direction, good communication and staff co-operation, not
coercion.
If there is one lesson that we can learn from the dotcom frenzy it
is that e-business technology is simple. So simple that it will
only work when we describe exactly how our business works. Any
complexity about e-business arises from the business, not from the
'e' prefix.
As many have shown, if you can sum up your business in a few lines
of code, it is probably not worth much. The contrast between
conventional and Internet-driven business is really one of
complexity versus simplicity. A good simple business activity will
be cheap, efficient and easily automated.
A good complex activity is likely to be expensive and resource
intensive but will be of significant benefit to the customer. The
successful use of e-business technologies will streamline simple
activities and support complex ones. It relies on a clear strategic
direction and makes full use of the skills and knowledge within the
business. This is what change management is all about.
What is change management?
The biggest myth about
change management is that it involves changing people so that they
fall into line with a strategy or plan. This works best in a
totalitarian state where the strategists have enough control to
overcome the resulting resistance to change. An easier and more
effective approach is to make it easy and desirable for people to
change themselves.
The role of senior managers, according to this approach, is to
communicate the need for change and to provide the support to
enable it. Focusing on communication is not about being nice to
people and asking them to change if it isn't too much trouble. It
is recognition of the fact that people will only work differently
if they view the business differently.
If you try to change what people do, they will go back to their old
ways as soon as the boss stops looking. If you change how people
see their job, they will do things differently of their own accord.
Effective communication is not an easy way out. It takes a lot of
effort, skill and a degree of patience. The following steps can
help:
Step one: clarify strategic intentions
In a business
culture strongly focused on financial performance, it is easy to
talk about strategy in terms of financial results. This motivates
shareholders not employees. Yet, employees are the only people who
can turn a strategic vision into reality.
They will only make this happen if they are motivated and have a
clear sense of direction. To achieve this, senior management must
clarify the business' strategic intentions. For e-business to have
clear strategic value, it must be relevant to the business'
strategic intentions.
If senior management wants IT people to communicate with business
people, a shared understanding of strategic intentions provides a
common language. It also serves as a guide for choosing between the
endless possibilities that new technologies offer.
Step two: why do people see e-business
differently?
Senior managers, project managers and
business managers all have a different understanding of change
projects. They view the change capability of the business and the
resource demands of projects from their own perspectives. If badly
managed, these differences can become divisive.
Senior management has two key concerns: financial performance and
recreating the business for the future. They also have only limited
exposure to the complexity of day-to-day operations. Because of
this limited knowledge they will tend to overestimate how easy it
is for the business to change and underestimate the resources
required by change projects.
Technology project managers appreciate the technical complexity of
strategic e-business projects and are aware of the uncertainty
facing the project team. They will tend to overestimate the
resource demands of a project and will be more conservative than
senior management about the amount of change the project can
achieve.
Business managers are the most familiar with a company's day-to-day
operations. They work hard to keep things running smoothly and feel
that any attempts to change operations will increase their
workloads. Like senior managers, they tend not to be aware of the
full costs of e-business technology until they are spelled out.
Everyone in the organisation has a variant view of strategic
e-business projects and with good reason. Projects can easily come
unstuck because these differences are left unresolved until they
turn into problems. Strategic projects are particularly prone to
this, as much of the early discussions are between senior
management and the appointed project manager.
Before addressing the details of what changes will be made, senior
and project managers should identify which constituencies in the
organisation will be most affected by the change and canvass their
opinions.
Step three: Develop a communication strategy
The
difficulty with involving people in change projects is that large
groups are slow and their results are often mediocre. The key is to
get the appropriate level of involvement for each constituency
affected by the project. It is useful to categorise people as
collaborators, accommodators, compromisers and resistors.
Collaborators are people who are needed to make the project work
and who can benefit from it. They need to be actively involved in
designing the e-business systems and planning the change process.
The project team should ensure these people are well informed and
their views sought when there is any uncertainty about the
project's impact on the business.
The valuable opinions will often come from 'old timers' who have
intimate knowledge of the business and an established network of
personal contacts throughout the organisation.
Accommodators are not greatly affected by a project and their
support is not vital to success. They can make change easier simply
by being tolerant of variations in their colleagues' performance
during the implementation period. Inform these people that change
is taking place and they will usually accommodate it.
Just knowing that the purchasing staff are being trained next week
is enough for many people to put in urgent requests now and hold
others until purchasing gets back to normal.
Compromisers are those who can create genuine difficulties for the
e-business project if it begins to have an adverse effect on them.
The key to winning over these people is to listen to them and find
a mutually acceptable way forward. This may mean revising the
project implementation or supporting one of their projects in
return for their support.
Failing to communicate with these people can turn them into active
resistors of the project. Resistors can also create difficulties
and either object to the project in principle or stand to lose out.
Sometimes, resistance is due to misunderstanding the project and
can be reduced by explaining what the impact of the changes will
be.
Others genuinely stand to lose out and must either be compensated
in some way or their views challenged by senior management rather
than the project team. Changing into an e-business Technology can
eliminate bureaucracy, but it can also take decisions away from
expert staff and reduce customer choice.
A successful e-business strategy has a clear sense of direction and
is driven by effective communication, so that skills and knowledge
are enhanced by technology and not undermined. Knowing who to
engage in communication and understanding the differences between
them is the key to realising your e-business strategy.
Chris Hemingway is a research fellow in the information systems
research centre at Cranfield School of Management.