Why change management consultants matter
The rate of change is increasing as updates to technology, ways of working, regulation and customer preferences jump in different directions across all industries. To keep up with change and mitigate ‘change fatigue’, organisations need to reimagine the way they think about change management and transformation for their people.
A key element of this process is packaging complex change management information and creating an integrated, clear and measurable people-experience to deploy. Too often project-driven change is seen by the business as something separate from normal day-to-day operations. The reality is change management happens every day – whether you bring in change management consultants or not – and is just one of the many priorities a business has to action, including development and performance priorities.
What do change management consultants do?
Change management consultancy is the communication and implementation of change, taking into account the people at the other end of it – their needs, capability and possible resistance – to ensure the change is implemented effectively and efficiently. At GRIST, we're an experienced team of change management consultants first and foremost, and we've used our expertise to help organisations with the change management of both small change projects and large scale transformations and for over 30 years.
How GRIST does change management
After many years of designing and delivering change management strategies and seeing what works (and what doesn’t) for our clients, our change process is the same approach we have to learning and development. Change management and development are often seen as two separate functions, and yet, for both you’re looking for someone to change their behaviour. If you leverage your leadership activities and operating rhythm effectively, you can build an agile, innovative, learning culture that will allow your organisation to thrive through any change.
Change management isn’t going away – as Justin Trudeau famously said ‘The pace of change has never been this fast, yet it will never be this slow again.’ And that was well before the whole world had to deal with a pandemic and AI explosion. Change management is constant, but the way to deal with it sustainably is to equip your leaders to upskill their people as needed through development.
It’s hard to argue with the power of change management when it’s done well. Human behaviour is 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: help leaders and senior leaders build an operating rhythm than incorporates development so change management strategies are implemented on the job
Focus on small changes: lots of small, strategic changes will build momentum and aggregate to big results and true transformation
Incorporate analysis and experimentation: teach your people to analyse and adapt their approach as they go through the change management process
Document impact and outcomes: evaluate change management impact and build evidence of behavioural change as part of your change management strategy
Celebrate and communicate change: build on the change management by singing loudly and broadly about the wins along the way.
There are two key components to consider when designing change interventions:
The road: the underlying change management muscle (or operating rhythm) in the business, based on the quality and quantity of conversations between leaders and teams that enable development and effective behavioural change management
The vehicle: a package of change management that identifies the micro-behaviours that will deliver the desired outcomes and that is designed in a way that makes it easy to deliver through the existing operating rhythm.
By using a process already in place (the road), your leaders will know what to expect when presented with change management and how to implement and embed it. Because the process of change management becomes the same as the process for driving performance and encouraging development, it means for those receiving it, it will feel familiar; they'll see a track record for success.
At the core of all GRIST interventions are micro-behaviours. These small, specific, targeted actions enable big change when they are demonstrated well and consistently. Micro-behaviours enable business outcomes to be realised and give your business a competitive advantage. When you combine a strong operating rhythm with a micro-behavioural approach, you’re creating a high-performance vehicle that can deliver change projects.
Our change process
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.
This cycle helps change managers to package change in the best possible way so leaders can implement it through their operating rhythm. It's designed to operate on a quarterly cycle:
OUTLINE quarterly view of change across your business unit and the stop/start behaviours required from each role
NETWORK with the business to validate the behaviours and understand any obstacles
BUILD the complete package plus toolkit for business unit to help deliver change
ONBOARD the change package into business
ASSESS results and pivot or amplify your approach if necessary
RECOGNISE change in behaviour (big and small)
DETERMINE adjustments and maintenance for next quarter
How do you put this change cycle into action?
OUTLINE
First, define the change
What it is
Why it needs to occur
Who it affects
The measures that will demonstrate whether the change has been successfully integrated into the business or not.
Define the change in behaviour
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’. 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. This isn’t about defining behaviours for those roles who will support the change management, just those roles that need to make a permanent change to what they do. 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.
What knowledge underpins the change?
As you are identifying and defining the intent and micro-behaviours, think about what knowledge must underpin the demonstration of the behaviours. This could be technical details or product specifics.
NETWORK
Once you’ve outlined the change, you need to network it with the your key stakeholders. This helps you validate the micro-behaviours you’ve defined will work, and so you can understand the business strategy, business outcomes, and capability that may either help or hinder the implementation of the behavioural change.
Doing this before building the interventions you deliver to the business will ensure they’re fit for purpose and aligned to the key stakeholders' day-to-day performance and development activity as well as your desired future state. It also allows you to mitigate the impact of changes that are misaligned with the day-to-day business priorities.
Who to talk to
The key stakeholders in your business unit that have a picture of the performance and development priorities currently in action and what will be the focus next. This could include:
Performance managers
Senior leaders or leaders of leaders
Capability coaches
Development specialists
You may need to talk to more than one person to get a full picture of what’s happening in the business now and what’s planned for the upcoming quarter.
The types of questions to ask
What are the performance priorities currently?
What are the performance priorities/challenges for the next quarter?
What changes will they be focusing on to achieve the performance priorities for the next quarter?
Are there any areas where the changes proposed misalign and/or support the performance priorities?
What’s working/what’s not?
For example: let’s say you need to roll out a regulation change that has tightened the parameters on how you can cross-sell, but the performance priority for the next quarter is number of customer needs met. Together with the business, you’ll need to address how the regulation change can be put into effect while still allowing the business to meet its business outcomes.
How to assess the degree of difficulty of the change
In the OUTLINE, you’ve homed in on the critical micro-behaviours to be implemented. How can you then get an idea of the impact these micro-behaviours will have on the people implementing them? You’ll get the most accurate read by getting input from the business unit teams themselves on how their people are likely to respond to the change.
The change grid describes the stages a team member typically goes through when experiencing organisational change; though bear in mind, each team member will experience this cycle at a different rate and intensity. By gaining an understanding of how people are likely to transition through the change you’ll get a clearer picture of the degree of difficulty the change will have in reality. This will help you plan and build your implementation more effectively, based on the common expected responses identified.
The Scott and Jaffe Change Grid
BUILD
The BUILD phase is about building the interventions to embed your defined micro-behaviours. This package will include tangible activities, tools and milestones to be used by you and the business unit leaders as you onboard the change into the business.
You should have the following components:
A summary of the what, why, when of the changes and how they align to the organisation’s values and strategy/goals
The key micro-behaviours to be implemented
Activities to be actioned by the leader, aligned to the business operating rhythm and including links to relevant tools and resources
How leaders can measure whether the interventions are working (what should they see their people doing and what results should follow?)
Determining how much you need in the package
The level of detail around change activities required depends on the underlying change management capability (change muscle) in the business. For a high performing business unit that has a well-established and high-quality change cadence, simply providing the intent, micro-behaviours and milestones would be enough.
Conversely, for a business unit that has less experience and capability driving change you will need to be more specific about when and how to use activities like team meetings, observations, coaching etc., to initiate and embed the change. This is where change management consultants can really add value in helping you implement.
The amount of content will vary as the change load varies. The operating rhythm activities will remain largely the same – what you’ll see is a change in how much focus is directed towards change management versus other priorities:
ONBOARD
The success of the ONBOARD phase depends on three critical elements: how successfully you engaged the business in the NETWORK phase, how clearly articulated your BUILD phase change management package is and the frequency and quality of your leaders’ operating rhythm.
Deliver the change management package to the leaders implementing the change management. This will include all the tools, resources and activities they’ll need to communicate the change to their people and deliver any development or coaching on the behavioural change that needs to occur.
When to check in on progress
It’s important for you to know how the change management is progressing; this will be critical to the ASSESS and RECOGNISE phase. To prepare for that, ensure you set up a regular cadence with the relevant parts of the business to gather lead indicators: i.e. whether the micro-behaviours you’ve identified are being demonstrated and whether the activities and interventions you’ve put in place are working.
ASSESS
The ASSESS phase is designed to help you analyse the results of the change management during the onboarding of your change package in the business. Assessing as the change is taking place will help you to pivot or amplify your approach as necessary..
When to collect data
There will be natural points where you’ll want to check on progress. They should be a regular occurrence: monthly or 6-weekly would work well. Work with your leaders to schedule the touchpoints when you’ll assess change management progress.
Look for trends: uplifts, downturns, areas of the business that are doing better than others with their change management. You could ask: how do these change management strategies compare to our track record for change?
How to analyse your approach
From the steps above, you’ll now have a clear view of your lead and lag measures. You’ll be able to identify what areas of your change management plan need more development or what areas are working well and could be shared across other teams. There are three key contributors to consider when analysing your change management results:
FOCUS: this is your defined micro-behaviours. Are they understood and can the team members demonstrate them on the job?
FREQUENCY: is there sufficient touchpoints or quantity of activity to embed the focus above?
QUALITY: are the activities and interventions being delivered effectively and in a way that has an impact on the behavioural change you’re making?
There are three key questions that will help inform the direction of your activities. These form the base of the self-assessment survey but could also be used in coaching, observation, and team meetings.
Use this flow chart to help guide your choices of how to direct the change management you’re implementing.
A flow chart to help you direct the change management you’re implementing
RECOGNISE & DETERMINE
The RECOGNISE phase is about acknowledging where and when change in behaviour is taking place. This phase aims to produce two outcomes: to motivate others to make the change by recognising those who have already actioned it and to keep the momentum for those who are already on the change management path.
This phase relies on the ASSESS phase to be regularly completed during the change management process.
The DETERMINE phase sets you up for the next OUTLINE phase. It’s about reviewing what happened through the last quarter and adjusting your approach if necessary for the next. It’s also about assessing what start or stop micro-behaviours need to continue to be monitored for maintenance and embedment.
Assessing the impact of change
The behaviours equation: by looking at the specific number of critical micro-behaviours required to change over a time period, you’ll get an indication of the impact on the people enacting and supporting the change.
This change impact is highly dependent on the underlying change capability (change muscle) in the business and can be measured over time, giving you the formula for how much change management is required. Change management consultants should work with you to build your change muscle with each change management project.
Getting your operating rhythm right and breaking change down to a micro-behavioural approach will give your organisation a competitive advantage in a world where change is only going to get faster.