The Structure Required for Adaptive Change Management

Talk to any project manager and they will underscore the importance of change management support from their colleagues in human resources. They also will share that even when solid capability is brought to the table, they still struggle to include change methodology into initiatives, let alone leverage its value for improved project success.

The difficulty of incorporating change management may lie less in the construct of the particular change methodology applied, and more in the challenge of integrating the rational structure of project management with the irrational and unpredictable process of managing behavior change. Successful change architects have learned that they must enhance the adaptive capability of their project teams by applying both Change Science and Art to create more integrated blueprints for project success.

Take the case of a Fortune 100 manufacturing organization that two years ago began a global HRIS implementation. Change management resources were involved from the very beginning of the project, starting with the development of the business case, because executive leadership and the HR and IT project managers recognized it would be critical for success.

The change team started laying the foundation early. They assigned resources, identified their methodology, conducted early stakeholder readiness assessments, and established a high-level project plan. They created a project theme, developed key messages, and conducted numerous presentations. They formed an executive sponsor council and a customer board. And with the business case in hand, they created consensus about the solution with senior executives and HR leaders worldwide.

Three months after the project started, however, the wheels fell off. There were disagreements within the work streams between company and vendor resources. HR leaders and senior executives balked at changes to processes like performance management and reporting formats. And despite raising these risks to leadership, the change team found themselves on the margin of the project. The project managers increasingly skipped regularly scheduled change update meetings and ignored information shared by the team.

The issue came to a head when the change team identified a critical personality clash between a company work stream leader and a vendor resource. Having uncovered some of the underlying challenges, they even suggested bringing the two employees together to mediate a solution. The PMO ignored the advice and when the conflict escalated, blamed the change team for igniting the problem.

An IT leader expressed his frustration saying, “When I don’t include a change work stream, the implementation is too technically focused. We often have a hard time getting employees to adopt new tools. But when I bring in the change managers, they seem unorganized and get too hung up on stakeholder concerns and theory. I don’t know what to do with that information and we waste time.”

No matter how well structured and planned, once a project begins there are obstacles and challenges that require redesigning the plan or creating work-around solutions to help meet broader project objectives. Some problems are technical problems that can be solved by applying expertise. Others require solutions that are more adaptive and focused on navigating human emotions and behavior. Most problems are a combination of both and require adaptive capability that allows change leaders to navigate the ambiguity and create flexible solutions to keep initiatives on track.

The change team struggled in the first phase of the project because they placed too much emphasis on the Change Art — assessing, interpreting and understanding the emotional and behavioral factors that influence people during the course of an initiative. They stayed in the balcony and continued to articulate the project vision and key objectives. They listened, asked tough questions, and created honest communication that helped clarify the real problems. They also were concerned about building relationships to help work stream leaders stay collaborative over the long haul.

While all that Change Art produced valuable information that would ultimately help them adapt successfully, the behavioral obstacles identified were difficult for highly structured project managers and technical resources to understand and address. The information seemed to work against the process, deadlines and budgets established for the initiative. Project managers were left wondering how to create action that fit within the structure of the overall project plan, and as a result, they saw the change team as “not getting it.”

Change Science, in contrast, provides the structure to support change management activities. It helps bring order to the often complex process of managing the human elements of a project by defining the tasks, roles, milestones and timelines required to achieve project objectives. Without Science, our insights into human motivation remain only insights without the corresponding actions needed to create desired behavioral change.

Change Science is more than a well-designed deliverable. It is the process that translates the language of human behavior into the language of project management. This is essential because it helps project managers more clearly understand the relationship between technical activities and the actions required to achieve the behavioral change required. The elements they applied included:

1. Project Management 101 Although the change team created a high-level plan upfront, they didn’t expand the detail once the project started, nor did they fully link their activities with those of other work streams. The result was a PMO and technical team that felt the change team was disconnected from the project. Once they improved the plan and the integration of the work and deliverables, they gained credibility and were much more effective.
2. Task Master The team had one identified leader, but it operated more loosely. As a result, project managers, who are focused on driving to timelines and budgets, felt there was no accountability. Increasing the visibility of the change leader improved the perception of accountability and established the clear point of communication project leaders needed.
3. Division of Labor Once they established a detailed project plan, they understood what capability was needed to complete the work. This strengthened the quality of results because team members were assigned work consistent with their skills.
4. Task Clarity Prior to the additional structure, the change team tended to cluster around the hot issue of the day. The project structure helped everyone focus on their specific objectives.
5. Tested Tools Another cascading result of the detailed project plan was that it helped the team see where they could bring consistency in the use of tools. This brought such an improvement to the quality of reports, assessments, and templates that work stream leaders that had ignored the change team previously asked regularly for the tools.
6. Regular Meetings Not only did the change team create a more consistent meeting schedule, but Change Science helped those meetings become more focused and effective.

When Art was applied without Science, the change team was unsuccessful helping project resources adapt to organizational realities. When they applied the tools of Science, the PMO not only understood the actions required for intervention, but also the deliverables and accountability to help them more effectively generate results.

The integration was essential.

Science needs Art because Art identifies underlying issues and the drivers of behavior change. It identifies pathways for adaptive solutions required to overcome project challenges. Likewise, Art needs Science because Science turns Art’s information and ideas into structured action with defined outcomes. Art identifies what needs to happen and Science makes it happen. By recognizing and understanding the connections between the two, change leaders will be better able to bring the adaptive capability required to more successfully managing change.