In last week's blog post, I spoke about navigating some of the inevitable or unexpected bumps that most projects will experience at some stage. But at what point does challenging become untenable?. You may need to desert the sinking ship and swim to safety.
I've been in this situation a few times, and I don't like it. Not at all!
An unplanned departure is my last resort. The prospect of tapping out keeps me up for many nights, wrangling with imposter syndrome, examining all the things I could be doing wrong. "Put your big girl pants on and suck it up, princess" that's my favourite self-talk phrase. But I have departed or "been no longer required" a couple of times. Read on!
"You're the fourth change manager we've had on this project. The last one was useless; All she did was agitate the stakeholders by asking them questions we already knew the answers to.
The project is a mess. You know you're signing up for a shit sandwich, but you like a challenge. Sorting things out is part of your skill set. You know you can sprinkle unicorn dust, bring order to chaos and guide leaders in delivering a brilliant transformation. But when the previous change managers left, you need to find out why.
I've often found they were not incompetent; they'd just had enough.
Scenario One: Organisational Change immaturity
Below is a high-level change maturity scale. I'm brilliant at improving change maturity. I love to create a framework, design a delivery toolkit, and set up a community of practice and change champion network. I love to leave an organisation more change mature than when I joined. I'll often be able to do this while I deliver an episodic project change if they let me!
Last year, I stepped into a failing project where the previous Changie had been ejected. She had been their first Change Manager. I started the project with walk-throughs of what they should expect a Change Manager to do. I explained some basic change models, calling out where they were relevant and essential to their success. I used words like collaboration, co-design, user-journey, transparency, just-in-time learning, feedback loops, and KPIs.
They nodded, and their eyes shone in anticipation of all they would learn about Change.
Three days later, I delivered the first draft of my change plan.
They wouldn't publish the survey results because of the alarming employee dissatisfaction statistics.
People couldn't self-serve their learning journey as they could not be trusted.
I couldn't use terms like "increased productivity" because staff would fear job losses if they could do things faster.
Workshops needed to last 7.5 hours; otherwise, people would go home early.
A SharePoint was not allowed. There needed to be a printed manual.
The colours were too bold; there were too many graphics. More detailed text was required. Could I write it in a Word document?
They didn't 'get' this is a discussion document, and I could have written it on a beermat. They spent an entire 40-minute meeting discussing whether we should call it training, learning or education. The sponsor was too busy to talk to me. When I finally spoke to him, the only feedback I got about my change plan was that it had three spelling mistakes.
They were not ready for me or anyone else to lead them in Change.
You can't fight this. In an old-school hierarchical organisation, if the direction to change does not come from the top, you cannot make an impact from the bottom.
What happened? I submitted my plan. I made a million unnecessary edits to wording, pictures and layouts. It returned to me with red edits each time, like I was at school. Eventually, when the leader and her assistant had taken all the change management out of the change plan, they were happy with it, and I wasn't needed any more. Phew! I have a niggling concern. My name is on the document, and it's not my plan. Anyone reading it would think Sharon Connolly knows nothing about Change.
Scenario Two: Overdeveloped Change maturity
Have you ever headed out in your car, gotten to your destination and thought, 'Shit, what am I doing at the gym, I was headed to the supermarket?' Or the other way around. It's called unconscious competence, where we're so good at something we do it on autopilot and don't give it any thought. I've been in this situation too.
When the frameworks and toolkits are set in stone and change management is a box-ticking exercise to cover your ass in case the project is audited, it's no place for me.
Where you have to fill in twenty boxes on ten front door portals before you can meet someone for a chat, when processes are in place for process's sake, and you can't question or adapt, I cannot stay. This could be the perfect environment for a BA turned change manager, but my unicorns will turn into old donkeys. If the process of Change is more important than the Change, you likely can't win because the process gatekeepers will fiercely guard it.
There are many other areas to consider, and the support and backing of an engaged sponsor is paramount. Even if you don't have time to do a deep dive, self-reflection and evaluation in these two areas can help you frame conversations with the right people.
Scenario Three: Organisational Immaturity
Similar to, but different from, change maturity. Have you ever worked anywhere where governance and decision-making could be more explicit? Where there is no product owner and multiple SMEs with conflicting ideas, or when decision-making is shared across multiple sponsors, you can never get in the same room. In this scenario, you may feel well supported by one leader, often the one who hired you, but because they're bickering with others at their level, you'll never get the full support you need. You'll always look over your shoulder and need to justify your actions because the leadership is not unified.
Collaborative co-design is not the same as organisational chaos. People should be given the psychological safety to express their views and be heard, but when the decision maker says, "Sorry, no, because.....", there should be respect for the decision and maturity to deal with the disappointment. Unless your role is to streamline this chaos, you can't work in this chaos.
A challenging role is great.
Tight deadlines, lack of resources, lack of funds, difficult stakeholders, change resistance, and regulatory constraints. That's BAU, baby. Dig deep, put your big girl pants on, get out and sprinkle the unicorn dust. But if you don't have the full backing of a sponsor with the full support of their team or superhero, you're a fish swimming in custard. Get out.
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