If you listen to any of the current group of analysts and social business thought leaders it won't take you long to hear that the transformation to a social business is more about changing corporate culture than anything else. I was thinking about this idea that change is necessary and it reminded me of some lessons I learned (mostly the hard way) in a former life as an enterprise software engagement manager. Fundamentally change management follows a basic pattern that is "tried and true". From my experience these basic fundamentals don't really change from project to project or company to company.
Before we talk about change management and what that really means to a company I think it is useful to think about the reasons for change. Today's companies and executives are under tremendous pressure from the economy, from customers, from new and unpredictable competitors and from their own employees. This pressure is directly related to an urgency created by each of these factors independently and intensified as the factors collide to create a new business environment.
The economy and the increase of global competition, often with creative / innovative business models that leverage the hyper-connectivity of the web, alone is driving the need for a new approach to business strategy, what I call the flexible enterprise, where a company can adjust strategy and underlying systems on an as needed basis (which could be daily or even minute by minute in some industries). The "old days" of a strategic plan in a binder on a shelf that was revised every 3-5 years are dead. In a world where a new competitor can emerge overnight with the global reach, greater innovation and increased efficiency to immediately threaten your business base inflexibility is not an option. Current IT infrastructures often don't support this new flexible strategy and are feeling this business pressure directly.
The social web (or web 2.0 if you prefer) has had a tremendous and lasting impact on people's perceptions of interactions, influence, connectivity and relationships. The new use paradigms have also changed expectations for technology most noticeably the expectation of a modern and social user experience from software tools and a culture of transparency and openness. This has led to what some people call the consumerization of IT, or what I like to call the "bring your own" (BYO) workplace where employees feel empowered to use the tools that get their jobs done efficiently and effectively whether they're provided by corporate IT or not. As customer's these new social people also carry very different expectations and behaviors. Often the trusted source for information about a company is the social customer's network, not the corporation. With all of the social media channels available the social customer has a voice and influence in new and powerful ways. The social employee and the social customer are driving the need for change and creating even greater urgency for companies to move toward a social business model or fail.
That's the "why we're having this conversation", now on to the how does a company manage change? Change management sits at the intersection of people, process and culture in an organization, often built on a technology foundation. Something like this:
Change management has a few basic underlying principals:
- Understand where your organization is currently.
- Clearly define the end objectives of a change management project.
- Define roadblocks, both internal and external, that could influence the project.
- Involve the stakeholders in the project from the outset. (This is the most critical tenet). Empower the team and remove roadblocks.
- Define and get agreement on the methods that will be used to get to the end objectives.
- Create urgency that reflects the business value and importance of the project.
- Define benchmarks that will measure the progress and end success (or failure) of the project.
- Break the project into manageable and measurable steps and group the steps in manageable phases.
- Manage to short term successes and publicize those success.
- Create advocates of the small successes. Engage influential stakeholders (often not management, but the "go to" people) and get their support.
- Communicate! Transparency is critical in this process.
- Make it stick. The change has to become part of the ongoing culture. Reward ongoing support, hire and promote advocates.
Change isn't a one time event, it's an ongoing process and managing that change requires effort and investment.
Tags: social business, change management, change, social customer, social employee
