Use Questions – not Solutions – to Drive Change

What do you want to change?  That is the question.  It bears asking again and again throughout the change process.  What are we changing ‘from … to?‘  And why? What should this change accomplish?  What is the difference people will see?  Sounds obvious, I know, but many times when I ask that question, I get kind of a word salad masquerading as messaging, peppered with words like “transformation,” “modernization,” “future state,” and (ugh) “increased efficiency and effectiveness.”  

Solutions can bring risk.  Often, as solutions become project plans, they can take on a life of their own and create an illusory comfort zone.  Teams can fall in love with solutions they’ve funded and promoted – and love can be blind. For example, it can bring the risk of conflating training and adoption (they aren’t the same and training isn’t necessarily the happy path to adoption).  It can transform morning stand-ups into echo chambers where teams affirm the path they’re on without the benefit of mechanisms to periscope up and check the temperature.  Fixating on change as a “project” with the goal of getting people to “buy in” rather than on (getting people to think about) what actually needs to change – is risky.  It can cause things to devolve into something akin to a marketing (sales) exercise: “Once ‘they’ see how it works, they’re going to love it…”   Now that’s love!  And risk!   

Change as strategy – not as project.  Change as organic – not episodic. It is so easy – and human  (stand by, here come the chevrons!) – to “target” a “problem,” analyze “root causes,”  identify (buy) a solution, launch a change initiative, work hard to finish it on time, in scope, and on budget, and then when we’re “done,” declare:  “Voila!  There you go … we should be good now.”  The old saw that warns “x% of change efforts fail” persists because most of us – most organizations – still see change as episodic, as bumps on the road that can be resolved through linear problem-solving. We even take pride in striving for ‘change that sticks” (neither possible nor prudent because the stickier we make the change, the tougher it is to remain agile and be change-ready so we can change again when it’s time to).  Bottom line, we still see change as life-interrupted, not as life.        

Strategy first, then change.  Ah.  But what’s this mean in practical terms?  What actions does that say a leader and his/her team need to take?  One approach involves regularly – and frequently – toggling back and forth between “strategizing” and “planning:”     

⬅ Strategizing starts with where we want to end up.  It calls on us and our team to think “backwards:” literally, “back-time” what has to have happened that got us to where we want to be, and what has to have happened before that, and before that.  Then, once we’ve clarified our strategic imperatives, we continually validate them as we move into strategy implementation – i.e. change process(es). This commits us to ongoing line-of-sight – alignment, in other words – with our vision (what we want to be) and our mission (what we want to do to realize our vision). 

➡Planning, on the other hand, starts with where we are. It is forward-moving and details what we need to do, who’ll do what when, what needs to happen next, and then after that.  It is our roadmap, our tactical advance, toward where we want to end up – our goal(s).    

To implement change, leaders and their teams need both – a strategy and a plan – and then play both ends to the middle, fueling the process with challenging questions and doing so as transparently as possible.  For example:     

Strategy: Is where we said we want to end up still where we want to end up?  What has changed (internally or externally) that might warrants us to shift or re-think our strategy?  What signals are we getting – or missing – that should inform our way forward?  

And Plan:  Is the step we are about to take next and the step we’ve planned after that moving us in the right direction?  How do we know?  What feedback are we eliciting from what multiple sources that argues for or against the viability – or even the relevance – of what we think our next step should be?     

Questions help drive change.  We must be clear about what we want to change – i.e.,  where we want to end up, because where we want to end up can be a moving target given the current environment where so much is changing so quickly. For this reason if for no other, it is mission critical to stay in the interrogative even while we are taking action. Here are some questions to ask:   

• How will we measure success?  Have we asked those who will implement the change(s) what they think the metrics for success should be or how they think their performance should be measured during and as a result of the change?  Stakeholder and team input from the start keeps change goals “real,” strengthens ownership in the change, improves performance, and helps mitigate change fatigue.     

• Is change management built into the integrated master schedule (IMS)?  The IMS is like a big sheet of orchestra music: It shows all the instruments that need to play, what their cues are, and how they will harmonize – and improvise when needed – with the other instruments. For example: 

• • Feedback: Does the schedule account for ongoing feedback (focus groups, listening tours, etc.) and time to adjust course based on those inputs?    

• • Resources: Have resources been developed and uploaded to Sharepoint and Teams, with enough time to create awareness and help stakeholders and/or users understand how to navigate and use those tools? And is the process for updating that information accounted for in the IMS? 

• • Organizational change:  Have HR and Legal been consulted with enough time to address relevant concerns and/or risks – for example, new job descriptions and performance criteria, new team configurations, new skill requirements, or new hire on-boarding content and messaging?     

• • Digital modernization: For IT transformations, does the IMS reflect pre-deployment outreach to key sites and data prep messaging for instance, and are there steps to train and leverage input from the Service Desk Team?  For example, have they taken the training and been invited to provide feedback?  

• Are we optimizing AI? AI can help track dependencies, automate  stakeholder mapping and email updates, increase clarity around who’s responsible for what and when, and more.  This helps operationalize transparency, feedback loops, and the ability to coordinate and back-time work streams.  In the case of IT transformations, for example: just because the developers are ready doesn’t mean we ‘re ready to deploy!  Aligning outreach and messaging with site prep and training, integrating feedback and course correction, and keeping content on Teams current, accessible, and vibrant – these are all ways in which AI can “orchestrate” the change process.     

• Are we inviting – and acting on – feedback?  Are we listening to customers?  Key stakeholders?  Team members?  Other business units?  Are we letting people know that our process includes asking for their input?  If we aren’t, we should because doing so builds credibility and reduces resistance. And, do we sincerely want to hear what people think? Because if all we’re doing is humoring people to “check-the-box” they’ll know it in a New York minute – word will get out fast and all-important feedback will quickly turn into cynicism as people realize that what they have to say doesn’t matter anyway.      

• What’s missing?  What aren’t we seeing?  This isn’t about second-guessing ourselves – it is about asking: “what question(s) should we be asking ourselves right now that we aren’t?”  This can be hard to do when what we think is needed is utter certainty in order to press forward.  But, keeping that periscope up at all times is essential.  When we talk about “being change ready” and agile, this is huge.   

• What’s next?  What happens after we’ve flipped the switch, and implemented the change?  What has – or hasn’t – changed that we didn’t foresee?  What needs to change now that we‘ve implemented this change?  Organizations don’t stop changing once the “change project” is done.  The “real” change often only becomes evident just as the so-called change project is winding down.   

• What’re we learning?  If we aren’t always asking this question, we aren’t leading change nor are we getting ready for the next change – whether we can see it coming or not,   

Make change part of your operating model.  Things are moving fast. Those mega multi-year strategic plans?  They’re as old as dial-up. Today, strategies are good for maybe 12-18 months.  The goal isn’t the strategic plan: it’s (to get good at) doing strategy work together, as a team, and flexing our collective strategic thinking muscles. It is something dynamic that you do – and regularly check in about – and engage team members across your organization at multiple levels.  It is encouraging more and more people to ask “what if” questions more of the time.  It’s a way to validate, re-set, re-think.  And change. So that changing is part of what you and your organization do and talk about.  Part of your lived experience as a team.  Part of how you define and measure performance, serve and engage customers and stakeholders, and achieve results.   And yes, a defining part of your operating model. 

Change as dynamics – not mechanics.  Change isn’t just  a “thing.”  It is an experience.  It  is paradoxical because it can be encountered in a flash but may need to be digested and integrated over time. It’s a process that comes alive through the actions we take and the behaviors that we exhibit.  It isn’t certain, it’s rarely sequential, and it isn’t ever over.  Try as we might to nail it down, it is like music as it is heard – not as it is written.     

Change is not life-interrupted.  Change is going on all the time.  The questions we ask open the doors and windows of our organizational house.  The “solutions” we embrace (or buy,) must serve to facilitate our next steps in the change process but not occlude our strategic vision for what really needs to be different, nor should those solutions distract us to such a degree that we stop asking hard questions.  Change is not life-interrupted – it is a sign of life.