Making Change I: Key Steps to Avoiding Implementation Failure

When an organization sets out to change its direction in a big way or make a cultural shift—say, to be more entrepreneurial—it’s probably going to put those changes on paper, whether through a long memo, a strategic plan, or a report. There's a good chance, if it’s a report, that it will be well-written, look professional, and have some good ideas in it. There’s a good chance the report will be distributed among managers and key staff members, where it will have a prominent place on their desks, bookshelves, or computer desktops. And there’s a good chance the report will simply sit in that place of prominence, while every one of them gets busy with all the time-critical things they have to do.

There’s a good chance, ultimately, that very little will happen.

Another way to say this is that coming up with a solution is a lot easier than making sure it is implemented. And that’s why there is book after book after book written on the subject. Lucky for me, I’m not writing a book. But I recently worked on a project with a public media organization that highlights three critical steps that change efforts often miss.

The organization in question was trying to set a new direction for all of its digital efforts (web site, apps, etc.) and change its culture to be more forward-thinking in the digital realm. When I first showed up, I talked to employees at all levels, from the boss on down. These are all smart, well-meaning people. But the conversations were full of danger signs as far as implementation goes. No one was satisfied with where they were, but they each talked about concerns at different levels that didn’t necessarily match up. I heard concerns about the look and feel of the site (changes needed in color choices, layout, etc.), about features (how donations should work or how to stream content), and about other issues outside of the web site (the need for a more active social media presence). Until they were prompted by me, very few people even mentioned the overall purpose of all that digital stuff. They just didn’t have a common understanding of the purpose, or even the importance, of their digital media. On the other hand, everyone did seem to have an understanding of one thing: They all talked about how short-staffed they were, with so many demands on their time that any new project would be difficult to execute.

It can be hard to fix this kind of situation without some outside help: a fresh eye from someone like me. I won’t go into everything I did with them. Instead, I’ll just focus on three things that could apply to almost any organization and that reduce the chances of implementation failure.

I. Form the Right Group To Guide the Process

There are a lot of decisions to make when you’re trying to create change. Ideally you want to gather a small group of people who can really judge what’s doable, can foresee pitfalls, and, if they really agree to do something, are in a position to make sure it happens. (Not just because they have formal authority but also because they know how things work in the organization.) They also have to represent the different groups whose expertise will be integral to deciding what path to pursue. For instance, the public media organization needed to include at least one person who was used to dealing with digital/techie stuff, programming, news, administration, sales and development, etc. All that said, this group has to be small enough that it can wrestle with ideas and have real discussions (something that’s tough to do if you get much bigger than eight or 10 people).

There are two main reasons to convene this kind of working group:

• Better solution: You’re going to get a better solution with a broader set of people giving genuine input, assuming you actually listen to that input.
• More personal buy-in: As people provide more input, they become more invested in that solution; they begin to see the solution as theirs, rather than something imposed by a management directive.

In an inclusive situation like this, you can still have the general manager be part of the working group, he or she may even have outsized influence, but if the process is to work the GM can’t be calling every shot. In my next post, I'll talk about two other keys to moving from planning to actual change.

[Photo of change © Edellaquila courtesy of Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos]