How change management consultants can get ONBOARD and run effective, sustainable change
At GRIST, we believe change management done well has immense power.
Human behaviour feels difficult to influence and yet, when you tap into the right message and techniques, simple, small shifts can make a massive difference.
It starts with doing change differently.
A great change management consultant should use your leadership, focus on small changes, incorporate analysis and experimentation, document impact and outcomes, and celebrate and communicate change.
The GRIST ONBOARD Change Cycle is designed to help change managers step through the process of understanding and packaging multiple changes into a single quarterly view for the business unit affected by them, as well as supporting the business through implementation and analysis of the change delivered.
So how do you put the cycle into action? It all begins with defining, or, outlining the behaviour you want to change: what it is, why it needs to occur, who it affects, and the measures that will demonstrate whether the change has been successfully integrated into the business or not.
When defining the change in behaviour you need to see, you need to also define the intent of the change. The intent is tied absolutely to the ‘why’. As leadership expert, Simon Sinek, says: ‘When we know WHY we do what we do, everything falls into place.
When we don’t, we have to push things into place.’
The key here is to frame the intent in a single, succinct statement that provides a clear ‘why’ that appeals to the roles that ultimately need to make the change. An intent statement will become your guiding light when defining the behaviours to start and stop.
A good intent statement should focus on how the change aligns with or supports the following (in order of priority):
Better customer outcomes
Something of value to the people ultimately being asked to change (easier, quicker, more successful, less customer complaints/objections, more positive customer feedback)
Company values/objectives
Meeting community expectations (being compliant)
When you’ve defined the intent, you need to identify the behaviours that are happening currently that need to stop, and identify the desired micro-behaviours to that will deliver your desired future state. Keep these as small and simple as you can – focus on the few critical micro-behaviours that will deliver you the change outcome you want to see to keep your change management as straightforward as you can.
Micro-behaviours should be observable and assessable
If you can’t see someone do it or hear someone say it you can’t observe and assess it. Without observation and assessment, you won’t be able to measure the implementation of change as it happens.
Ask yourself: ‘when this happens, we currently do this. In the future when this happens, we need to do this’. When you’re noting down the ‘do’, make sure it’s something you would actually see or hear someone do.
Micro-behaviours serve as building blocks for behaviour change. They’re small enough to master with little effort, and specific enough for a leader to coach to. By picking the critical micro-behaviours aligned to the larger change you want to drive, you’ll ensure tangible and sustainable outcomes that can be driven by the leaders in your business; not reliant on complex training that takes your people away from their job.
As Aristotle said (as translated by Will Durant); ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit’. Real behavioural change that sticks is created through our everyday actions and reactions.
