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Management: Reframing Change PDF Print E-mail
Written by Chris Musselwhite   
Monday, 31 December 2007 18:00
Management: Reframing Change - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
For most of us, the New Year brings the renewed belief that we can let go of old habits and take up new ones. Almost everyone views this as an annual opportunity to change for the better. Unfortunately, change demanded of us by others is often viewed as quite the opposite: since we don't view it as self-directed, we tend to resist it.

Similarly, when an organization decides change is necessary, management assumes that many people will resist. This assumption is the foundation of the discipline of change management, which exists to help companies manage people's reactions to change. As such, much of the practical discussion surrounding change management is about how to help people to not fear, resist, or sabotage change initiated by the organization.

While this aspect of change management is still relevant, I suggest we take the discussion in a different direction. Rather than managing people's reactions to change, why not manage their relationship to change instead? For the purpose of this discussion, we'll call this change relationship management.

Is it danger or opportunity?
Change relationship management is a way to manage reactions to change by managing the perception that "change happens to me" versus "I collaborate in change." When we position change as something that needs to be managed or controlled, we reinforce a negative relationship. Conversely, if we position change as the opportunity to make things better, we could just as quickly create a positive relationship.

The ancient Chinese clearly understood the potential for change to be viewed both positively and negatively; the Chinese character for crisis is a combination of the characters for "danger" and "opportunity."

Indeed, change management research shows that people have different cognitive perceptions of change. Some people enjoy and see the need for radical change; others are suspect of radical change and prefer an incremental approach. Most of us fall somewhere in between. Given these well-documented individual preferences, it remains our relationship to any given change that most determines whether we see danger or opportunity.

But no matter how we feel about it, change is a fact of life. And today, change is occurring faster than ever before. As the speed of technology introduction and adoption continues to accelerate, businesses must get faster and better at implementing incremental and radical change. While successful incremental change can negate the need for radical change, sometimes radical change is necessary.

Thus, the first goal of change relationship management is to position change so that it's perceived as a constant opportunity. This will enable both incremental and radical change to be effected more easily and quickly.

Here's an example where perspective makes all the difference. Several years ago, if you had announced a new policy to improve inter-office communication that required everyone type out all communications to co-workers, people would have resisted it, to say the least.

Some people led the charge to use electronic mail, while others adopted only after it became impossible to do their jobs without it. Today, employees almost universally view e-mail as a fact of life.

We love to solve problems
Whether you prefer radical or gradual change is secondary to whether you perceive that change is happening to you or you are collaborating in the improvement of something you care about.

Not surprisingly, the latter is more attractive to many because when you boil it down, change is about problem-solving. Humans love to figure things out. When you frame change as the chance to solve problems creatively, you make it appealing.

With this bigger picture in mind, people begin to see solving problems very differently, becoming empowered to seek them out and solve them more creatively and reducing the likelihood that the same problem will occur again.
This approach to change, which requires training people in problem solving and decisionmaking, isn't new. Companies like Toyota have shown that it works to help a company grow. Empowering people doesn't just make them better problem solvers, it increases their job satisfaction and, subsequently, their level of motivation. Research shows that having the opportunity to solve problems in the course of a day makes a job more rewarding.

No one likes to think of themselves as just a cog in the machine. This is because humans like to feel needed as much as they like to solve problems. When people understand that their responsibilities go beyond the specific tasks they do, they are more likely to see themselves as problem solvers rather than owners (and protectors) of a specific task, which can be a barrier to change. This requires providing your employees with more information and more control, as well as basing performance evaluation on how the person helped the company meets its objectives.

For example, if my job is to do A, and you pay me based on how well I do A, then asking me to do C is threatening and de-motivating. If my job is to do A through E as needed, then changing the scope of my job isn't threatening or de-motivating. In fact, it can actually become a benefit that my job changes as the needs of the company change, making me more skilled and valued and my work more diverse and interesting. Companies that practice cross-training can attest to these benefits.

By instilling in everyone the idea that their job is to make the company successful, you make people feel valued, plus you get an entire organization that is more likely to be big-picture literate, a trait that is always in the best interest of the business.

An organization that becomes adept at change relationship management will successfully position change as a positive opportunity. Once change is successfully viewed as something desirable and empowering, the organization is creating a culture of change. In a true culture of change, everyone is encouraged and rewarded for initiating and effecting change that benefits the organization, and individual performance is tied to organizational performance.

This has two big payoffs. First, when employees get to solve problems creatively and make a difference, they are happier and more motivated to keep improving their performance. Second, when employees are equipped and empowered to initiate and effect change, the organization is more agile and innovative.

In organizations that are successfully moving toward this culture, senior management has led the way. Whether the average organization can actually create this ideal culture of change remains to be seen, but the possible payoffs certainly make the topic of change relationship management worth further investigation.

Chris Musselwhite is president and CEO of Discovery Learning Inc. and author of Dangerous Opportunity: Making Change Work (Xlibris, 2004). He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .