And Then a Miracle Happened

Welcome to the last installment of Practical Change Management's Virtual Book Club (VBC).  The discussion question I posed in my last post was:

The Question
On page 36, Chip and Dan discuss solution-focused therapy and begin to talk about the Miracle Question: "Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well.  Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved.  When you wake up in the morning, what's the first small sign you'd see that would make you think, 'Well, something must have happened - the problem is gone!'?"  How can the Miracle Question be used to improve overall projects and Change Management programs?

My Answer
Have you ever seen a presentation where someone describes the problem in great detail, lays out all of the wonderful benefits you'll see when they solve the problem, then in the middle where the actual solution should be they just have a big cloud with the words, "And then a miracle happened?"

I certainly have, and I find that people typically aren't very impressed with this image.  I think, though, that this slide relates back to the Miracle Question posed in solution-focused therapy, and I believe there is a legitimate place for it in projects.

I have seen so many projects grind to a halt because of "Analysis Paralysis."  The team faces a complex, overwhelming problem.  They want to make sure they develop a comprehensive, well-designed solution that will completely resolve the problem in a way that makes everyone happy.  To do this, they start doing research.  They begin to design the solution, but they aren't sure it's the best solution.  So, they do more research.  They tweak their design.  They're still not sure it's perfect.  So, they do more research.  They make some more updates.  They still have some doubts about the solution.  So, they do more research...

The cycle can continue indefinitely.  Eventually, they just give up, and instead of at least having a good solution, they're just left with the original problem.

This is where miracles come into play.

By posing the Miracle Question, "What's the first small sign you'd see that would make you think...'The  problem is gone!'?", the team can move from trying to solve a complex problem in one fell blow to focusing on the most visible, important part of the solution that they want to achieve.  All they have to do is create a solution that will bring about that "first small sign."

Focusing on this one piece of the solution will:

• Narrow the scope of the problem they're addressing
• Reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed, increasing their confidence in their ability to successfully tackle the problem
• Focus their research and development efforts
• Break the Analysis Paralysis cycle

Once the team has achieved the "first small sign," they can go back and ask the Miracle Question again, deciding what the next "small sign" would be.  

They are once again in a cycle, but now, instead of being in a research cycle that leads to the ultimate demise of their project, they have entered a "doing" cycle that will lead them step-by-step to a full and successful solution.

Let Me Know: How would you use the Miracle Question to make your project successful?  Do you think it could help your team break out of the Analysis Paralysis trap?

Looking for Bright Spots: A Case Study

Welcome back to Practical Change Management's Virtual Book Club (VBC).  The discussion question I posed in my last post was:

The Question
Beginning on page 27, Chip and Dan use the story of fighting malnutrition in Vietnam to highlight the concept of bright spots, defined as "successful efforts worth emulating."  How would you use "bright spots" in a difficult situation or project to help bring about change?

My Answer

I promised you a real-life case study from one of my past projects.  To protect the innocent (and myself), I have changed all names and will not be disclosing any details that might identify the client.

The Situation
Many years ago, I was working on a software implementation at a large company.  Over the years, this company had acquired smaller companies that they now considered "business units."  Each business unit (BU) kept it's unique software, business processes, and culture.  Perhaps just as important, each BU kept its own budget, and the parent company was not in the habit of telling them how to spend their money, or forcing changes on them.

The project I was on was implementing new software across seven of the BUs.  Because each BU was so unique, we had set up Change teams at each BU made up of employees who could help us navigate the culture and implement the change.  It quickly became apparent, however, that not all of the BUs were equally committed to the change.  Their commitment ranged from full, enthusiastic support to grudging participation.  Because they had so much independence in deciding whether to participate in and provide budget to the project, we had to find a way to get and keep everyone on board.

What We Did
We appealed to their riders: One of the first things we did was an analysis of how the new system would impact each BU.  What we found was that some BUs were getting a huge benefit from the implementation, while some were breaking even and others were actually losing some functionality and autonomy.  Using this information, we created charts and graphs, did some data analysis, and basically explained that the organization as a whole would see a net gain in benefits, even if some BUs were feeling a bit of a loss.

We appealed to their elephants: In an effort to build some positive peer pressure and appeal to everyone's competitive nature, we set up a competition.  Each BU could earn points by implementing Change activities and by sharing success stories that could be scaled and used to help other BUs achieve success.

We cleared the path: We recognized that many people weren't sure how to support a change effort, so we produced a monthly toolkit that explained what needed to be done that month, provided step-by-step directions on how to do it, and included any necessary templates.

Doing It Differently with Bright Spots
While all of our efforts certainly helped drive the change, we still found ourselves faced with a BU that really resisted the implementation.  Looking back, I would have spent less time focusing on why that BU was so negative about the change (they told us on a regular basis - it wasn't a secret), and spent more time focusing on why one of the BUs was so positive and so proactive in supporting the change.  This BU was our bright spot.  I think that if we had better understood why our main change agent there was putting so much effort into driving the change, and understood how he was in turn spreading this positive attitude throughout his BU, we could have used this information to help turn around our resistor.

As it was, despite the success of our change program, I think I missed an opportunity to learn from this bright spot and gain a better understanding of why some people support change.  This understanding could have informed all of my future change programs.

Let Me Know:  In the comments section, tell me about a time that you were able to identify a bright spot and use it to improve your change program.  Or, if your story is more like mine, tell me how you would better harness the power of bright spots if you could do it again.

Next Discussion Question:  On page 36, Chip and Dan discuss solutions-focused therapy and begin to talk about the Miracle Question: "Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well.  Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved.  When you wake up in the morning, what's the first small sign you'd see that would make you think, 'Well, something must have happened - the problem is gone!'?"  How can the Miracle Question be used to improve overall projects and Change Management programs?

The Elephant in the Room: Making a Boring Project Emotional

Welcome to the first meeting of Practical Change Management's virtual book club (VBC).  Hopefully, a few of you had a chance to pick up the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip and Dan Heath.

As mentioned last week, our first discussion question centers around the "Glove Story" that is told on page 12.  In this story, a company has a huge opportunity to save costs by streamlining their purchasing processes.  The man advocating for the change does all of the sensible things.  He gathers data showing how much money they can save.  He creates graphs and presentations.  He makes sure the powers that be understand the opportunity.  He puts in all of this time and effort, and the executives nod in agreement, but the change never moves forward.

Finally, as a last resort, the employee has a summer intern gather a sample of a glove used in every facility, along with the price paid for it.  He ends up with a pile of hundreds of gloves that have been bought separately by different departments.  Despite being identical gloves, the cost of the gloves ranged from less than $5 to more than $15!  When he invites the executives in for another meeting, he piles the gloves on a table, each tagged with the department that bought it and the price paid.  Suddenly, confronted with a startling visual of the money being wasted by ineffective purchasing, the executives throw themselves behind the need for process change.

The Question
This brings me to our first discussion question: How would you create an "elephant presentation," which is a presentation designed to work on people's emotions, for a relatively boring project?

I decided to look at this question for a project type that I'm very familiar with: an Oracle ERP system implementation.  Really, it just doesn't get much less sexy than that.  Having worked on this type of project for years, I can assure you that very few people get excited about big system implementations.  And outside of the IT department, there is often very little sense of urgency around the need to do the project.  So how, exactly, could I create a presentation that would get your average person fired up about a project that will be long, hard, expensive, and boring?

My Answer
I would create a video that follows the current process, focusing not just on the steps in the process, but also on the impact it has on employees along the way.  Consider, for example, the purchasing process.  Let's take a company that has a computer-based, but not ERP-style automated system.  Executives might think the current process works just fine.  The purchasing department might think the process could be a bit faster, but feel that overall it fits the company's needs.  Meanwhile, the average user is pulling his hair out.  The video would look like this:

Open with a shot of someone (we'll call him John) filling in an online form.  Once he finishes it, he e-mails it to his boss for approval.  We see John on the video the next day knocking on his boss's door.  John wasn't sure if his boss had seen the e-mail, and wanted to make sure the purchasing request got reviewed.  John's boss hadn't noticed the e-mail, but promises to look at it before the day is done.

Another day goes by, and we see John back at his boss's office checking on the purchasing request.  John's boss informs him that he wasn't sure if he had the approval authority for such a large request, so he forwarded the form to the next level of management, just in case.  The video follows John as he goes to see his boss's boss.  There he meets the administrative assistant, who informs John that her boss insists that the forms be printed out so that she can review them on paper, rather than in an e-mail.  The admin points to John's printed purchase request at the bottom of a large inbox pile.

Another day goes by.  It's now day four, and John still doesn't know if his purchase request has been approved.  We watch him go back to the administrative assistant, who informs John that her boss has left for a four-day weekend.  John asks if there's someone else who can approve his request, but unfortunately, the boss didn't leave a delegate.  The video ends with John walking back to his office in defeat, resigned to at least four more days of waiting for his request to be reviewed and approved. 

Every issue John ran into in the video could be addressed by the implementation of an ERP system.  This is something that people know going into the implementation at an intellectual level, but creating a video that shows one of their actual colleagues suffering through a common problem - a problem they have probably encountered themselves - drives at their sense of empathy and helps build a sense that this is an urgent problem that needs to be addressed.

Let Me Know: Do you think this presentation would work to build an emotional response to a "boring" intellectual problem?  What presentation did you come up with for a "boring"project?  Let me know in the comments section below.

Next Discussion Question:   Beginning on page 27, Chip and Dan use the story of fighting malnutrition in Vietnam to highlight the concept of bright spots, defined as "successful efforts worth emulating."  How would you use "bright spots" in a difficult situation or project to help bring about change?  I'll be sharing a real-life case study from one of my past projects.

Change Management Virtual Book Club Starting Next Week - Join Now!

I recently finished reading Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip and Dan Heath.  As I read, I made a list of topics that hit home for me that I wanted to discuss on this blog.  The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that I didn't just want to analyze the book and put out a one-sided article.  What I really wanted was to have a dynamic conversation with other professionals about ideas that can impact the way we approach Change Management.

With that in mind, I am kicking off Practical Change Management's first ever Virtual Book Club (VBC).  There are no fees to join, no mandatory conference calls, and if you don't keep up with the reading, I promise not to send a note home to your parents.  All you have to do is pick up a copy of the book and start reading.  Check back here regularly to find the current topic of discussion, read your peers' ideas, and add your own.  If you're not good at remembering to check back, you can click here to "officially" sign up.  Send me your e-mail address, and I'll send you a reminder each time a new post is added (And don't worry, I won't sell your e-mail address to anyone.  I wouldn't even know who to sell it to.).

In each post, I will include the discussion topic for the next post so that you have time to read that part of the book and think through how you would handle the situation I'm discussing.

I look forward to discussing this book with you!  Please feel free to invite others to join the conversation, as well.  Expertise in Change Management is not required...just a passion for reading and discussing excellent books.

Many thanks,
Emily

First Discussion Topic: Chip and Dan use the concept of the rider, elephant, and path as the core theme of their book.  On page 12, they give the "glove" example as a classic elephant appeal (Look!  You only have to read a few pages to join the first discussion.).  This made me think: How would I create an elephant presentation for a "boring" project, such as an IT system implementation?  What would your elephant presentation be for a "boring" project?

In the next post, I'll let you know what I came up with for an elephant presentation around an Oracle ERP implementation.