Ten Questions that Catalyze Great Change Leadership, Part One
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Introduction

A good change consultant’s primary job is to catalyze insight and clear thinking in their clients so they are able to lead their organization’s change efforts with greater skill and competency. Sometimes the catalyst for such insight is another executive who knows to ask the questions that promote the right type of thinking and actions to support change.

We begin our consulting interventions by asking a series of briefing questions of the key executives in charge of the change. These briefings provide us with background information about the change, as well as surface high leverage opportunities for adding immediate value. But most importantly, answering our questions expands the executives’ perspective. The more profound and penetrating the questions we ask, the more insightful the executive becomes in answering them. Done properly, such a briefing can and should be a powerful intervention in itself.

In this month’s article, we present five key topic areas for questioning, and next month, five more. As a change consultant, project manager, or executive change leader, you will want to carefully consider these questions as you initiate a change, or help to assess and course correct one that has already begun.

There are, of course, many more questions that can and need to be asked of sponsoring executives than are presented here. We selected these ten particular topics because asking them usually catalyzes critical insights in executives and leads to a more thorough and successful change strategy.

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Instructions

Think about a change effort that you are currently working on as you read through the questions. Consider whether all of the executives in charge of the change, and all of the consultants involved, would answer each question the same way. Very fruitful discussions can occur among change leaders and their consultants concerning their different perceptions of the answers to these questions. If a sponsor has no answer to a particular topic, or discounts a certain area of inquiry as unnecessary, explore what is motivating his or her response. Then, use the information and insight you generate from the discussion to establish the conditions for successful change.

We have included a commentary after each set of questions to provide further insights about the questions and what information and related issues may surface.

THE TEN QUESTIONS: Part One

1. What outcomes and business results do you need to achieve through your change effort? How do you define “success” for this change? If this change were to be wildly successful, what would be happening to make it so?

Desired business results are a powerful driver of change. They can shift the perceptions of a particular change effort from a “nice to do” to a “must do.” Consequently, a key area of inquiry is determining how the change will help meet business objectives and whether there is alignment on this among the leaders. Consistent understanding of why the change is occurring and what benefits it will bring is essential to generating enterprise-wide support.

The definition and measurement of success for the change must include both business and cultural/human criteria. Whether individual change leaders perceive business value in both terms is very revealing of their existing mindset about what they believe is important to business success. Asking about both the business and the human success factors is a powerful way to help executives broaden their thinking. If the executives are not defining success in both arenas, then they will likely not plan for the human and cultural ingredients that are necessary to achieve the business results they covet. Publicly including these factors in the definition of success also gives the change effort more credibility for the people who must make it happen.

2. From your observations, to what degree do the people of the organization understand and buy in to the need for this change? If low, how will you help them understand the case for this change and engage them in ways that are energizing and inspiring, rather than threatening? What is in it for the people of your organization to want to make this change succeed? How will you motivate them?

This topic area is a great way to engage leaders in thinking about the human element in change. The executives will benefit from both observing and then trying to articulate the degree of commitment, excitement, and readiness for change existing within both management and the workforce. Getting the leaders to determine how to wake up the organization to the need to change, especially if people consider the company to be successful already, is essential, and not easy.

When discussing motivation strategies, it is very important to get the leaders to talk about their perceptions of how their leadership style impacts motivation. Ask them if their style is getting them the behavioral and emotional effect they want and need. Inquire about their beliefs regarding human motivation, and what they think works or not. Some leaders believe that workers will do what they are told, and therefore think that giving clear mandates is key. Others believe that workers will naturally resist, so then negative consequences (fear-based strategies) are best. Yet others believe that workers will buy-in if they are able to co-create the change, so participation is critical. Getting these beliefs on the table for discussion is the first step to building a motivation strategy that will work.

3. What major change initiatives are needed in the organization for the outcomes to be achieved? How would you define the full scope of this change? Consider changes in any aspect of the organization: strategy, business processes and systems, structure, leadership and workforce mindset, culture, resources, technology, behavior, etc.

New business directions always trigger a range of change initiatives. Executives typically identify the tangible organizational initiatives, such as re-structuring, reengineering business processes, altering systems, or implementing new technology. They frequently miss the need for changes in culture, leadership mindset and style, working relationships, and new behaviors, which are less tangible yet equally essential to success.

This topic area reveals the leaders’ view of the scope of the change, and again hints at whether or not the leaders recognize--and value--the human and cultural changes as well as the business changes. It also reveals the degree of clarity that leaders have about how the organizational and human changes are interdependent determinants of success. Both are key to success, and must be led consciously from the beginning.

4. What values, behaviors, or ways of working and relating must be in place for the change to occur? What are the organizing principles that lie at the heart of this change and are key to its success?

These questions are perhaps most important of all. They may also be the most challenging to ask and answer.

The intent here is to get the change leaders to think more deeply about the principles that underlie what they are attempting to achieve through the change. You might call these principles the heart and soul of the change, its governing principles. For example, core principles driving ERP and CRM implementations include: 1) the enterprise operating as one integrated system, 2) information sharing across boundaries, 3) people empowered to make decisions, and 4) people contributing in higher impact ways.

Overtly naming these principles enables change leaders to then identify what conditions exist that support them or not. For example, does the executive team act as one entity, or do turf wars divide them? Is information shared openly in your culture, or withheld as a power game? Does your approach to change engage people in decisions, or are you leaving people out of decisions that are most important to them? Change efforts succeed only to the degree to which prevailing cultural conditions support the underlying principles of the change itself.

Once articulated, use the core principles of your change effort to audit both organizational and cultural conditions to see if they already support the change. Where they don’t, you can then formulate change initiatives to alter them to what is required. For instance, we often create an intervention we call “Breakthrough Training,” designed to instill in executives necessary changes to their leadership style, mindset, and ways of working that reflect and accelerate the core principles of their change, and therefore their outcomes.

5. What key aspects of the organization and the culture are critical to protect and preserve because they already support your outcomes and core principles? How can you celebrate and build on them?

This topic area follows #4 intentionally. It focuses attention on both the organizational and human dimensions of the current state that are essential to keep in place, providing the benefits of familiarity amidst change, pride, stability, and confidence to succeed in the change. It is essential to celebrate and strengthen what already works, as long as it directly supports the creation of the desired state. This enables the leaders to identify and communicate respect for the past as well as bring firm grounding into the future. This enhances confidence and security amidst the unfamiliarity and stress of change.

In developmental and transitional changes, this is relatively easy to do. In both of those types of change efforts, you build the future off of tangible aspects of the current organization. In transformational change, this is not always the case, so a focused exploration of this question is a key strategy for mobilizing support, readiness, and confidence in the organization. This is especially true when the desired future—the transformed organization—will be profoundly different than the norm.

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Summary

Because leading transformational change efforts is so radically different from running current operations, their success often requires change leaders to think more deeply and thoroughly about how they will lead the effort and what should be included in it. Asking profound and direct questions can generate the discussions and decisions required to set your changes up for success. Use and adapt the questions above to catalyze such conversations.

And, stay tuned to next month’s issue of “Results from Change” for Part Two of the “Ten Questions that Catalyze Great Change Leadership”!

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THE TEN QUESTIONS: Part Two

6. Do you have an enterprise-wide change strategy for accomplishing your outcomes—and your various initiatives—that people can understand and align behind? Your change strategy would include your plans for catalyzing the changes; telling a unified story that incorporates all of the initiatives; and establishing adequate change infrastructures and resources, realistic timing, communications, and milestone events for achieving your outcomes.

Once your required outcomes for the change are clear, the creation of an enterprise-wide change strategy to deliver them is the most important task for the change leaders. Given all of the various organizational and cultural initiatives required, the leaders must think through a high-level start-up plan—their change strategy—for determining how they will prepare for and coordinate making the changes. Their change strategy must be formulated and communicated in a way that people can understand, find themselves in, and contribute their best to. Its success is an accelerator of your change!

This question opens up several discussions. First, it asks if the leaders have a change strategy, and therefore know what one is. Secondly, in defining the function of the change strategy, you can address its requirements for coalescing, guiding, and course correcting the complexity of changes as they unfold. A good change strategy would also determine realistic infrastructures, resources, communications, and timing for accomplishing the full scope of the changes.

The question also asks if the leaders, managers and workforce understand the change strategy, and are confident in its ability to guide them to change while maintaining ongoing operations. This question can reveal if what is being formulated about how the change is to be led, resourced, paced, and supported is realistic and humanly possible. If it is not, the leaders must course correct their plans now.

7. What change methodology or process roadmap will be used to orchestrate and integrate all of the various initiatives afoot in the organization? If more than one change model is being used in the organization, can they be identified and assessed for meeting the unique requirements of transformational change? Do they accommodate the integration of competing initiatives?

This question focuses on having a common change methodology for planning, designing, rolling out, and course correcting your various change initiatives. For transformational change, a process model is required, because a static change framework or a project management toolkit will not suffice for the dynamic complexity and emotional roller coaster of transformation. Your change model must fit the type of changes occurring! The nine-phase Change Process Model is a likely candidate for this level of complexity. It combines depth of guidance, the human dimension, and the flexibility required for all types of change—a true navigation system.

When multiple initiatives are happening, having a commonly accepted change model can increase the organization's ability to plan and orchestrate its changes. This question raises the need for integration among interdependent initiatives, and a strategy for coordinating resources, actions, and timing to reduce overwhelm, increase efficiencies, and balance the need to keep the organization operating smoothly while it changes. If many change models are in use, you may run the risk of them competing and confusing the organization. Often, this indicates that there is no unified infrastructure and strategy in place to oversee all of the changes.

8. What are you and your team planning to do to prepare the people of the organization, and your key stakeholders, to succeed in making this change as quickly and effectively as possible (i.e., communicating to build understanding and trust, skill development, shifting old mindsets and culture, expanding the knowledge base, increasing readiness, providing emotional support, etc.)?

This question brings the people challenges in change front and center. It causes leaders to think about people's readiness, support required, communications, emotional reactions, training, rewards…any of the actions that increase the likelihood that the workforce—who must make the change happen—will be ready and able to succeed. Significant attention to people is an essential investment in your success.

The delivery of these people-related services can be delegated, but the recognition and strategy for offering them belongs to the change leaders. Change leaders must attend to the people who will create the future state. What issues exist that will block people's willingness or ability to grab hold of the future and run with it? What will motivate and sustain them during the long and uncertain terrain ahead? What do they need from the organization to feel that their extra effort is met with a fair energy exchange?

In this discussion, delve into the leaders' reactions to thinking about the people issues. If they have a knee-jerk reaction to discount or hand off this critical piece of their change strategy, talk through what in their thinking causes them to disregard their people's needs. This can open up a very fruitful discussion of what it takes to lead transformation successfully. When generating ideas for how to support people, drive for specifics.

9. How will you assess your progress and course correct your change plans when you need to? How will you ensure getting truthful, accurate, and timely information from the organization and your customers about how the changes are going, and how will you deal with information that indicates a need to alter what you are doing, the pace, or your outcomes?

This question speaks to the need for staying on top of what is happening in the organization as it changes…in terms of organizational performance, customer service, progress on the change, and any of the myriad human reactions that surface at inopportune times. The question directs the conversation to how the leaders will create the conditions for getting truthful information in a timely manner.

If the leaders' track record for this is poor, they will have some important work to do to reestablish the possibility. Mandating, threatening, or ignoring past political or leadership style consequences will not turn this dynamic around. If the leaders are truly committed to receiving information that may indicate a course correction, they must model this commitment, starting with course correcting their own past behavior.

The leaders must also publicly establish the system for requesting, securing, and responding to feedback for potential course corrections on the change. Their success depends on it! They should be very clear what types of information they want (ANY and ALL information is GOOD!!!), where it should be delivered, how it will be dealt with, and how follow up communication will be handled. This is a high leverage opportunity for the leaders to walk their talk!

10. How are you going to model the required personal changes you are asking of the organization (i.e., changes in behavior, mindset, language, decision-making, work practices)? How do you want to be seen by the senior executives, managers and workforce, and what will you do to wake them up to the need to make these personal changes as well?

When an organization transforms, the leaders must take bold actions to demonstrate that a change in mindset, behavior, and work practices is required—of them as well as everyone in the organization. Personal change is the mandate of transformation, and cannot be delegated or sidestepped.

The issues in this question require self-reflection on the part of the leaders. Transformation demands commitment to their own personal change, and to the development of their leadership capacity. Open the door for this possibility here, and follow it up with a well-paced plan for supporting the executives to do the work they personally need to do to succeed.

Explore with the leaders what they are willing to look at in themselves that may or may not be enabling them to lead the organization successfully to its new future. Based on what is required by the change, explore if there are aspects of their thinking, beliefs, behavior, style, relationships, communications, emotional capacity, and so on, that need changing for them to model the new ways. Explore how to support them to address these personal aspects—coaching, training, observation and feedback? And, work with them to understand the importance of their modeling this type of personal change in the organization—how can they demonstrate the changes they are making in themselves as a leverage point for the rest of the organization transforming itself? How can they create the safe conditions for this to occur?

If your change is transformational, don't hedge on this issue…It's critical to your success!

Good luck exploring these questions with your change sponsors. And remember, once you have asked, be prepared to follow up with the change strategy work to bring all of the insights your questions have generated to life