In the past few weeks I’ve been reminding people how time is often the enemy of change. Reading the business papers I’ve been struck by how many businesses and even Government accepts the “need to change” to reduce costs, increase productivity and remain competitive but seem to ignore the time trap.

The alcohol “responsibility deal” brokered by the UK Government and supported by Asda, Heineken but only signed up to by Tesco, Marks & Spenceer and others is just one example. 

Managing change creates frustration
Managing change creates frustration for those implementing it and those that have to work with the consequences. This frustration often creates delays, huge additional costs, lower productivity and result in poor staff morale as organizations take account of the economic cycle, merge and seek to become more competitive.

The time trap factor
One of the crucial factors for those designing change within organizations is the time factor. Yet time is the one part of the equation that is ignored, often with disastrous consequences

To understand the time trap factor let’s remind ourselves how change is planned and implemented. For some months plans will be made to improve systems or organizations. The people that work on these plans consider future benefits, implementation plans, risk analysis flow charts etc. Once all the plans have been finalized and an implementation process agreed, the time frame for these people has moved to the present and their outlook is to the future.

Different time frames
On the day that the wider world, generally those people that are affected by the changes, are informed, the managing group or government minister are full of confidence and optimism for the improvements that the future will bring. The group being affected, however, are in a different time frame. Their experience is based upon the past and, even if that experience was understood to be inefficient, there is comfort in what people know and understand.

All change produces winners and losers. The winners will move their time frame to the future and the losers will move further into the past. In addition each group will be seeing the change from the perception of not “Is this change good for the organization” but from the personal standpoint of “Is this good for me”

The trick is to move as many people to the future time frame as possible, right from the start. The more people that talk about the future change in positive terms the greater the chance of success. Errors, however, revolve around poor communication, hurried change, poor planning and implementation.

The result is the creation of two camps.
Those viewed as being supportive of the change and those that are seen as being unsupportive. When this happens it’s interesting to observe that once people are viewed as being in the unsupportive group by the change leaders it’s very difficult for the individuals to move themselves out of this group in the minds of others. In a company situation such staff will often feel forced to leave.

Ignoring the time factor may not reduce the need for change, it may, however, increase the frustration and management effort needed to implement it.

Yesterday I had a very interesting telephone call from a friend who outlined some changes he was making to his work team. After an hour of listening to his proposals and the reasons why he was changing people’s work objectives and targets I couldn’t fault his logic.

The research for the “need to change” had taken six months and loads of statistics analysed and, as a result, the proposed alterations in people’s jobs and deliverables were both logical and led by market expectations.

I then asked “So what’s the next step?”
I’ve called a meeting of the team at the start of January and I’m going to tell them”.
“And what do you think their reaction will be?” I asked
“Some will agree and some will hate it…but they’ll just have to do it!“

It took me some time to explain to my friend that whilst he had spent six months of research into generating his ideas he was proposing to give those affected just a few hours to understand the logic and accept it. In fact he was hoping for universal acclamation and presumably “thanks” for his hard work and his proposals.

Too often those that plan team restructure have lived with their thoughts for many months. Their thought have gone through the process of  rejecting some ideas and accepting others to create a logical outcome. When introducing change there needs to be an understanding that those affected will move through similar thought processes and need time to do so.

This is because resistance to change is built into the very structure of most companies.

Over this past month or so a number of people in my network have approached me to discuss how they can manage a personal brand image.

I guess it’s because one of the first things I discuss with an executive that moves into a new job is the “image” that they want within their new workplace. We start out by developing a plan of action to construct and manage a positive image within the first few days and weeks.

However, it’s been long understood that head-hunters, future employers as well as future employees will search the internet for clues as to the reputation, management style and expertise of any future boss. This makes having a positive on-line reputation one that’s worth considering ahead of any change of job.

As for being self-employed, well the benefits of a strong on-line brand image is obvious.

In this first video I discuss how to create an plan for a personal brand image on-line as well as to discuss creating an “elevator pitch” that covers the three rules of “Credibility, Clarity and believability”

How to create a brand image

I’ve just had the pleasure of reviewing an advance copy of the book “How To Get a Job You’ll Love”  by John Lees and suggest that you buy it when it is published in a few days time.

My review is as follows:

A lot of blame is being heaped onto Maria by the Sales Director and the CEO. Both suggest that it was her fault that one of the candidates found details of the assessment centre process in the photocopier. However as there were seven sets of the documentation distributed it’s uncertain that any one person can be identified as the culprit.

It looks as if Maria is seeking advice on what to do next and whether it is time to consider her future and she is thinking that a change is appropriate before she is forced to leave.

She has taken advice from the CIPD and her husband who also works in HR.

However, is there any advice you could give her?

It’s inevitable that as companies such as Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Marks & Spencer and even Tesco suffer reduced profits they are developing a strategy that reduces costs by reducing staff.
 
Such companies then create smaller working teams or integrate the remaining staff into other departments together with their responsibilities.

There is a hidden downside with this strategy.That is that often there isn’t enough time, or motivation due to a sense of emergency, to integrate the new team properly so that they are capable of being as productive as they might be.

Our research, over nine years, into individual and team productivity following the integration of new people shows that only 60% of such changes deliver the results that were anticipated.

Poor communication, lack of understanding of team results and changes in management style all contribute to the potential failure. The result is that costs rise, goals and opportunities are not met and this results in further downsizing.

Companies that are changing their teams need to consider that they are in effect changing the make up of the team dynamic and need to consider a integration period in exactly the same way as if they were to be introducing a new members of staff