We've all been there. I can picture it vividly: The suited C-Suite sponsor fronts your town hall, announcing the uncomfortable impending change and telling everyone we're on the journey together. Yeah right!
Collaborative change is often impossible, and advertising it is damaging.
Let's take an ERP implementation. Who is involved in vendor selection? Who decides which modules you'll buy and how they will be configured? What about the contract negotiation or the roll-out schedule?
Occasionally, at project inception or ideation, some impacted users are invited to participate in a focus group, but in my experience, when we put a call out for contributors, we hear tumbleweed anyway.
It's not practical to involve most impacted users in all decisions regarding most changes. So, can we please stop telling them we're on the journey together? It just pisses them off.
Can change ever be collaborative anywhere?
Yes absolutely.
There are areas where the change journey can enriched by a collaborative approach.
For example, when designing learning, if we ask people how they like to learn or how they prefer to receive communication, we can design solutions to accommodate them, and they do feel involved.
Change Champions or superusers are a brilliant asset to any change to facilitate these conversations because impacted staff will often trust people who work close to them.
Be careful. Don't ask if you're not willing to accommodate requests.
In a recent project, the LT surveyed the audience, asking them what kept them up at night and then about their preferred learning delivery.
A large percentage responded that they were worried about fitting training around their current commitments and preferred self-paced online learning. The project designed a mandatory face-to-face three-day on-site learning solution and turned down my suggestion for the sponsor to make a video addressing things the users were not happy about.
Don't invite suggestions and feedback and then ignore it.
During stakeholder engagement, we must listen, really listen, and become active in multiple conversations. When an impacted user group voices concerns or requests, the change manager must pass those on to the decision-makers and become stakeholder advocates. People need to feel heard. If their requests cannot be accommodated, they need to hear why not. Change Managers wear multiple hats, trying to serve the needs of both sides. It's hard, but ignoring resistance is a big mistake.
Here's a handy slide combo to help you have truthful stakeholder conversations about where you can collaborate. Of course, you can't always keep everyone happy, so creating personas is a great way to capture most of the audience. Click here to grab these two.
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Sharon Connolly is a Change Leader in Sydney. She provides change management consulting to organisations, training, and toolkits for change managers. Her free Change Management PowerPoint templates have been used by over half a million people in 135 countries. If you're in Change Management, she's one to follow!