Formal process of ‘the change management programme’

In this item – item 6 on my list – we take a look at how Viral Change differs in its process, its approach on the change management programme.

The conventional approach's formal process is consistent with the assumed and lived model of the organisation. It stresses sequence: create a ‘burning platform first, communicate strategy, plan, distribute tasks, train, roll-out, check. It relies on processes above behaviours.

Viral Change approaches the formal process of change with the understanding of the organisation as a living, adaptable network. It stresses multi-directional influence and creation of stable change by the combination of four elements:

(1) language
(2) behaviours and their reinforcement
(3) creation of tipping points (with emphasis on ‘social imitation’)
(4) establishment of new routines or ‘cultures (see later).

In Viral Change mode, the emphasis is on behaviours above processes.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, you can read it all in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

How to change a country?

For those of us passionate about change in organisations, looking at change outside the enterprise is a learning treat. Social and political change is no different from organisational change. The only differences are the context, the scope and the interdependencies between individuals/players. What they all have in common is that human beings are the protagonists of change. Though it is unusual for me to write about non-organisational change in this blog, I am making a pleasurable exception today.

Imagine a politically conservative head of state asking a Marxist philosopher to gather ‘brains’ from all over (inside and outside the country), including all views and all political, social and technical positions. And then asking them to make suggestions on how to change the nation and create growth. This is not political fiction, nor fable, social experimentation or a PhD in democracy. It is simply France in 2008.

This remarkable process took place between July 2007 and January 2008. The head of state, of course, is Sarkozy; the Marxist philosopher is Jacques Attali and the invited brains consisted of 43 people from academia, consulting, finance, enterprises (big and small), journalism, etc. The outcome is published in the book 300 décisions pour changer la France. Rapport de la Commission pour la libération de la croissance française. (XO Editions, 2008, ISBN 978-2-84-563-373-5 - see also www.liberationdelacroissance.fr

300 proposals have become de facto ‘decisions’, as the President of France indicated that he is in a hurry and that everything needs to be implemented by October 2009. The proposals are fascinating to read, whether you agree with all of them or not. Incidentally, the 43 invitees signed off on all the ‘decisions’, even if some of them may not have been their real cup of tea, all in the interest of the common goal: to get France back to full employment and growth and change for good. Several lessons can be drawn from this for us as change evangelists/addicts/infectors:

1. Timeframe. It is possible to generate high quality change proposals in a shorter period of time. Six months for the above task is pretty good. They did not just sit around a table and chat, but they had numerous consultations with people and institutions, all documented in the fascinating final written output.
2. The membership was heterogeneous, which avoided the development of groupthink.
3. When the goal is worth it, challenging, exciting, etc. people roll up their sleeves and set aside tribal loyalties. And I often wonder how many ‘projects’ in our organisations have an element of excitement, discovery and ‘destiny’ (even with a small ‘d’, as I described in The Leader with Seven Faces). Many ‘activities’ are only geared towards changing the oil of the organisation instead of towards true transformation. Also, how many tribal discussions and turf wars jeopardise projects worth doing?
4. There is public commitment. The president has set public deadlines and has put a mechanism in place to make sure that they will be met. According to the report, this is a sort of ‘Delivery Office’ copied from Tony Blair. There is no hiding from it.

I think that this process is a model for many things, for example energy behind exciting goals and leadership (Attali is a fine, well-respected mind and author. His latest book is Une brève histoire de l’avenir)

The process and the report are not change per se, just like a massive communication programme within an organisation is not change either. But this is a good, impressive start. To the French: chapeau!

Cause-effect and Interventions

In this fifth instalment, we take a look at how Viral Change differs from the traditional change management in its view on cause-effect and interventions in the organisation.

The conventional approach is linear dynamics territory: big problems require big changes and a proportionate change management programme. Change progresses in a steady, measurable way (milestones and calendars). The programme has a distinct Tsunami effect and the bigger the tsunami the better. ‘We have to catch all at the same time with the same intensity’

Viral Change, however, has a clear non-linear dynamics view: big changes may require a small set of key and meaningful actions or (new) behaviours. The programme resembles the butterfly management effect: small initial change in key areas suddenly appears widespread, possibly ‘revolutionary’ (phase transition and tipping points).

If you want to read more about Viral Change, you can read it all in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations.

Disruptive Ideas achieve bigger results

Disruptive Ideas – the forthcoming new book by Leandro Herrero – shows organisations that all you need is a small set of disruptive ideas or powerful rules to create big impact.

In a time when organisations simultaneously run multiple corporate initiatives and large change programmes, Disruptive Ideas tells us that - contrary to the collective mindset that says that big problems need big solutions – all you need is a small set of powerful rules to create big cultural change.

In his previous book, Viral Change™, Leandro Herrero described how a small set of behaviours, spread by a small number of people could create sustainable change. In Disruptive Ideas, the follow-up book to Viral Change™, the author suggests a menu of 10 ‘structures’, 10 ‘processes’ and 10 ‘behaviours’ that have the power to transform any organisation of any size.

These 30 disruptive ideas can be implemented at any time and at almost no cost and what’s more...you don’t even need them all. But their compound effect – the 10+10+10 maths - will be more powerful than vast corporate programmes with dozens of objectives and efficiency targets.

This book will appeal to people at different levels of management or leadership, who want to reshape their culture by enhancing working practices and in general aim at greater organisational effectiveness. Its practical nature will appeal to all who want to implement key ideas – some of them contrarian or counterintuitive - that have the power to transform the organisation without having to embark upon a massive change management programme.

Leandro Herrero was a practicing psychiatrist for many years before holding senior leadership positions in top league business organisations. He is currently CEO of The Chalfont Project Ltd, an international group of organisational consultants, which he co-founded. His previous books include The Leader with Seven Faces, Viral Change and New Leaders Wanted – Now Hiring!, also published by meetingminds.

Disruptive Ideas, 10+10+10=1000: the maths of Viral Change that transform organisations
by Leandro Herrero
meetingminds, April 2008
£18.50/US $26.00, Paperback, 300 pages - ISBN: 978-1-905776-04-7
Available to pre-order at: www.waterstones.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, www.meetingminds.com and many other (online) bookshops and outlets.

A passionate architect of Viral Change

Pierre Morgon, Director of Primary Care at Schering-Plough, knows how to manage delicate changes. And he readily embraces the resulting human challenges. Several times he has gone through the difficult exercise of making teams do things differently at the same time as creating the right environment for them to do it in.

As Pierre Morgon worked with Leandro Herrero on several occasions, Business Digest felt he was ideally placed to provide an insider’s view on how Viral Change really works.

Read the whole interview here >>

Business Digest is a European publisher on business issues. Please visit their website to find more information on Business Digest articles and to subscribe to their monthly magazine on management and strategy.

The “behaviour champions” at Pfizer Ltd

When Business Digest decided to devote a full dossier in their December ’07 issue to Viral Change, they also wanted to show that Viral Change is more than just a concept. So, they interviewed two industry leaders about their experience with Viral Change in their organisations.

When Philip Watts was Director of the sales department within Pfizer Ltd, he knew something had to change. Reps understood the company’s goal and mission, but didn’t really know how to behave towards their colleagues or their customers. That’s when Philip Watts met Leandro and learnt about Viral Change...

Business Digest met up with him and found out all about his experience with with Viral Change within Pfizer.

Read the whole interview here >>

Business Digest is a European publisher on business issues. Please visit their website to find more information on Business Digest articles and to subscribe to their monthly magazine on management and strategy.

Interview with Leandro Herrero

Reader Views' Tyler Tichelaar sat down with Leandro Herrero to determine how he came to write Viral Change and what the thinking is behind the book. But most of all, to discover what it is that makes this book stand out from the traditional management of change.

You can read the full interview here.

Leandro Herrero’s audio interview on Viral Change

Inside Scoop Live's Juanita Watson interviewed Leandro Herrero, the author of Viral Change, to gain a full understanding of the concept of Viral Change and the thinking behind the book. The result is a fascinating interview that will provide you with an in-depth view of how the author came to the Viral Change methodology and how this has translated into his book.

You can listen to that interview here.

Management of change… a short video clip

For all of you who enjoyed the series on the 15 myths of change, Leandro Herrero has also created a short video clip on the management of change.

He has also compiled other short video posts on the following subjects:

• vision
• leadership development
• work-life balance
• innovation

You can also learn more about Viral Change by visiting The Chalfont Project’s website or clicking on any of the Viral Change resources on the right.

Business Digest to devote dossier to Viral Change

Business Digest, a European publication on management and strategy, has been helping leaders improve their understanding of the corporate environment and its evolution since 1992. They are also a preferred partner of well-known experts such as HEC Executive Education, Key People Clubs, The European Club of Corporate Universities, WDHB Consulting Group and Crossknowledge. For December 2007, they are preparing a special issue on change.

Business Digest plans to devote one dossier solely to Dr Herrero's book, Viral Change, and the implementation of the Viral Change^TM methodology in actual business situations. The dossier will consist of a 3-page review of the book and one or two interviews with top executives/managers whose companies have implemented Viral Change^TM.

The Chalfont Project Ltd is delighted by this initiative and is working together with Business Digest to bring their readers full insight into the fresh approach of Viral Change^TM.

The answer to myth 15: People used to not complying with norms will be even worse at accepting change

Today we reach the final assumption in my list of 15 management myths, which I posted here.

And this particular assumption is based on very little. In my book, Viral Change, I show how deviant people can teach us a lot. People who are traditionally bad at accepting norms from the managerial plumbing system may, however, be good adopters of infections when particular behaviours have been reinforced in the peer-to-peer internal network of Champions. My anecdotal experience is one of inverse correlation. Non-normative people often make good Champions!

Viral Change is using completely different highways to establish ‘norms’. They come up as a consequence of behavioural routines that have been established after tipping points. So they come in with their reinforcement mechanisms attached.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations.

You can also read some of the resources on Viral Change posted on the left or contact us for more information.

The answer to myth 14: There will always be casualties - people not accepting change - and you need to identify and deal with them

This assumption - and its equivalent, which we’ll look into in the next post - contains quite a lot of common sense. I have warned you several times before about preconceived ideas and I suggested a ‘suspend judgement’ policy. Yes, there will always be casualties, but you don’t know which ones. This assumption cries for leaders with significant emotional and social intelligence skills (in short supply), leaders who are able to read beyond the obvious and ask the question ‘why?’ Why the casualty? Happiness and unhappiness are part of our human nature. You can’t make people happy or unhappy. People make themselves happy or unhappy. I prefer happiness to unhappiness but can’t run a client engagement assuming that everybody is going to be happy. Unhappiness sometimes comes on the back of difficulty. What people might be saying is: “This is tough.”

Again, I would think twice before labelling the casualties. The death of many unhappy employees is sometimes grossly exaggerated. The statement also includes the words ‘accepting change’, so it contains the hidden famous assumption that people are resistant to change, which we have dealt with several times before. Viral change asks us not to make early assumptions. The power of internal networks enables them to deal with ‘receptive and non-receptive people’ far better than the managerial plumbing system. Inclusions and exclusions become very obvious after the peer-to-peer influence.

If some people do leave, make sure you take some time to look beyond the obvious ‘exit interview’. In such an exit interview, people tend to pay excessive attention to ‘what was wrong’. Incidentally, I prefer ‘stay interviews’, i.e., asking people why they are still here. From those who finally exclude themselves, we can learn not only what was ‘wrong’, but perhaps also what is going so well, that they can’t integrate it!

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

The answer to myth 13: Short-term wins are tactical but they do not usually represent real change

Obviously, some people don’t like ‘short wins’. These are usually the same people who do not consider change a valid label unless a big M&Ahas taken place. There is a semantic implication of ‘not-really-serious-change’. The world is rather bipolar here: some people love these short-term wins, others hate them.

Short-term wins are very much welcomed by Viral Change. We have said all along that small changes can lead to a big impact. So it is only natural that short-terms wins, or ‘win-wins, are part of the picture. The difference between the win-win/short-win in Viral Change and the one in conventional management of change is that in the latter, it usually means let’s fix what is small, visible and will make many people happy, a sure-sure bet, doable, sexy, it’s going to be rewarding. In Viral Change mode, small win-wins may be small, visible and will-make-many-people-happy, a sure-sure bet, doable, sexy, it’s going to be rewarding...or it may not be. This is not the judgement to make.

In Viral Change it’s not the easiness of the task that defines the ‘small’ quality. It is perhaps an atomic behaviour that by being reinforced creates a sense of possibility and that - when many of them are visible and ‘available’ - creates a tipping point of significance. There is small and then there is small: two types of small, two types of win-win. The statement above uses the word ‘tactical’ implying that there are strategic things and tactical things. Viral Change does not host that distinction. Apparently tactical things (the wide spread of a simple behaviour) have implications well beyond day-to-day tactics.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

The answer to myth 12: After change you need a period of stability and consolidation

Or so the troops sometimes say. After the third reorganisation and the fourth quality programme and the second change management initiative, the cry is loud: give us a break! Yes, stability would be nice. But the last time we had stability was around 1756 (give or take a 100 years). The current world is instable. The business environment is a chaotic moving target. You have to be very careful about the word ‘stability’.

Although the linguistics are logical, we must accept that real consolidation and real stability are not going to be a sort of ‘steady-state’. Many people in managerial ranks spend their life in rehearsal mode: I’ll do this when I have more people, when my headcount is full, when I’m given a new budget, etc. But in the meantime: things happen!

Viral Change provides a mechanism for a continuum between changes (from tipping points) and establishment of new behaviours as a routine. It also gives us the power of internal (viral) networks and their perception of ‘stability’ or ‘change’. It is legitimate to place borders and timelines on processes, but they are only useful as part of a code language. As we said in the previous assumption, it is only when ‘destination’ is absolutely fixed and unmovable that ‘the end of the change process’ makes sense. If you have reached X, well, that’s it! But if vision is more of a journey with the possibility of new discoveries, then when exactly would you be able to say that you have reached terra firma?

Viral Change forces you to see waves of change, more than a sequential journey from A to B to C. Your concept of stability or consolidation may never be the same!

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations.

The answer to myth 11: Vision for change needs to come from the top and cascade down

I don’t know whether ‘it needs to’ or whether it just happens to be the observable norm. It really depends on the use you make of the word ‘vision’. If your vision is something close to the ultimate managerial clairvoyance only hosted on the executive floor, then… well, it may cascade down. I think the main reason why an executive floor is at the top of the building is so the cascading down of the vision takes place with the full use of the forces of gravity! If vision is a clear point of destiny, then there is no point expecting this to come from the Post Room (and this is not a judgement about the ability of people in the post room to have a vision).

If your view of vision is more one of directions that can be refined, can grow, can benefit from the ‘none of us is smarter than all of us’ philosophy, then Viral Change is something you’ll be very comfortable with. Viral Change creates waves of infections and emergent tipping points. Allowing for (real) distributed leadership means that there is no ‘pre-defined final outcome’ (a scary thought for those in the command and control arena), but unpredictable, non-linear and potentially incredibly better outcomes.

In Viral Change, initial vision may come from the top leadership itself but it doesn’t follow the forces of gravity. Oh horror! How do I know that people are going in the right direction and aren’t drifting? Well, get involved! You are defining the non-negotiable behaviours and therefore you are the master of those hot topics. If they are reinforced as planned, you’ll have an incredibly hi-fi machine. At which point, ‘the top’ as a geographical signpost becomes irrelevant.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

The answer to myth 10: Sceptical people and enemies of change need to be sidelined

We all have our share of ‘difficult people’. Conventional management of change has taught us that there is always going to be a group of ‘no-hope’ people and another group of ‘maybe-but-very-sceptical-people’. It smells like a bell curve! There is nothing wrong with the talk. We all know what we mean by it. My warning is against premature labelling and self-fulfilling prophecies.

A converted sceptic is worth 100 disciplined followers, because (a) an imitation of his ‘conversion’ may draw a small world of its own into the change and (b) the ‘conversion’ itself is social proof and legitimization. (“If Peter is involved, maybe this is for real at last”, I heard in a client meeting). Our ‘internal segmentation’ often reads like this:

• Good guys: going for it, get them all on board.
• Resistant guys: they will never change, be prepared to let them go.
• Sceptical guys: mainly a pain, either they will ‘get it’ and change, or else’.

Viral Change has the following words of wisdom: suspend judgement, be willing to be surprised and, above all, don’t write off the assets that quickly. Mary, the one who is systematically sceptical, may well be so for a reason. And she may see vital change as a real opportunity for real change and see a role for herself in its model of distributed leadership. A sceptic may be one of your best Champions. Alice, a wonderfully loyal employee, always ready for change, may have been taken for granted. But Alice, recently promoted to section manager, may not fancy the idea of Change Champions going around apparently bypassing her hierarchy. She may become a wonderfully unhappy and unsupportive employee. Do not sideline anyone! Let’s first see who the final characters are in the tipping points plots!

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

The answer to myth 9: There is no point in creating change in one division without the rest of the company participating

Even people in a part of the organisation that feels passionate about change and embraces the principles of Viral Change, often have this nagging feeling about what the extent of it all will be, if the rest of the divisions (or the corporation, or headquarters, or everybody else) don’t do the same. In the worst case, this thinking leads to paralysis or a delay in the ‘change process’ until – or so they hope - others have understood and bought in. Which, incidentally, may never happen!

There is little doubt that changes in one group or division have the potential to create antibodies in the rest, or will simply be rejected or alienated. It may be tough. However, as leaders, one has to ask the question: what can I do that is within my control? Simply asking this question many times results in revelations such as: actually, a lot. Organisations have great capacity to host models in a symbiotic way. Change needs to start somewhere.

Viral Change focuses on the spread of changes via internal viral networks. In many cases, once the tipping points have occurred, their visibility goes beyond the borders of the organisation, and other divisions or groups may copy or start thinking about copying the changes. There is so much you can do via Viral Change within the borders under your control.

People who accept the idea of ‘try-and-see-what-happens’ have invented the word ‘pilot’. It seems as if ‘piloting’ is acceptable, but ‘here-we-go-for-real-change’ is not. Viral Change could be done through pilots, but we would be prostituting terminology. There are no ‘pilots’, only real life spread of infections. My advice is: start now!

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

The answer to myth 8: People are rational and will react to logical and rational requests for change

Yes, we want to believe that. Rational appeal (B is better than A, we should go with B) is a logical, pervasive mechanism. We use it all the time. And so we should. But in itself it doesn’t ensure change. People are able to understand the rationality of things and do appreciate that they are told things that way. But rational understanding does not guarantee (a) emotional integration or (b) behavioural change. How many times have we used the expression: ‘he or she doesn’t get it’, as if the intellectual and rational click has not been heard inside the brain?

We spend an enormous amount of time appealing to rationality, perhaps because we have a too high regard of ourselves as rational monkeys! We also spend time and energy on emotional massage: the country-house hotel with ‘motivational speakers’ is an example of this. What happens after the initial injection of rationality and emotions? Energy levels go down and reality takes over. Unless we have a daily motivational speaker and a daily meeting to appeal for rational change, we have a weak case for ‘change will follow’.

Viral Change tells us that what really matters is behavioural change and that this is only going to happen if particular behaviours are reinforced (reward, recognition, airtime, any good reinforcement). This reinforcement comes from (a) management and (b) peers. As you may know by now, Viral Change attempts to get management reinforcement as a given (which is sometimes a lot to ask, I admit!), but it banks quite a lot on the power of peer-to-peer reinforcement, mainly through the internal (viral) network of the Change Champions. Appeals for rationality? Great as a one-off. After that, behavioural reinforcement is the only thing that will make the change happen.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

The answer to myth 7: New processes and systems will create the new necessary behaviours

The traditional management of change is often based on changing the systems and processes. The establishment of new processes and systems often assumes that behaviours will follow as a consequence of those changes. It is expected and taken for granted.

However, as we know, it is often the case that people just continue to do things like they did them before. That is why we have all those incredibly big fiasco's of new processes and systems' implementations, often lead by a new IT system, which end up with ‘poor usage and acceptance’.

Viral Change tells us that the assumption is wrong. In many cases, we see temporary peaks of adoption, but with poor guarantees of sustainability. The role of behaviours in the process is flawed. New processes and systems do not create new behaviours. We need to have new behaviours in place first, in order to support ant new processes and systems. Remember the case of the un-collaborative sales force? (See my book, Viral Change, for this case study.) New processes and electronic systems do not create collaborating. On the contrary, you need to have collaboration in order to support these systems. Just a small change of paradigm!

Many organisations are stuck with this flawed process and it is not until behaviours are ‘re-placed’ that we start seeing the light. As described in the book, the biggest fiasco area I know is CRM: an area where the software and IT industry has produced very sexy tools and where the implementers use that incredibly weak assumption: ‘it is so good, people will adopt it’. There is no behavioural science expertise in most of those areas, so it is not surprising that the wrong assumption prevails. Even in those cases where people are aware of the naivety of the assumption, little is done to remedy it. Blaming IT or the specification or the project teams is a useful alibi. Blaming lack of stakeholder involvement is another one, a funny one, particularly when the implementation has been done through a myriad of project teams, user teams and stakeholder Task Forces.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations

The answer to myth 6: Communication and training are the vital components of change

This myth is very much related to the previous myth. Many change management initiatives look like communication and training programmes. Even people who would agree with you that this is ‘a part’, may be leading change programmes in which communication (and training) seems to be ‘the’ key, at least in size! It is easy, or easier, to develop hundreds of PowerPoint slides explaining the ins and outs of the change, the need for change, the alternative to change and the cost of no-change, etc. But the key question is: would people do things differently, once the communication and perhaps training programme has ended? The answer to that question is: maybe they will and maybe they won’t.

Viral Change tells us that communication and training are components of the change, but that we really need to focus on behaviours. Behaviours can’t be taught, at least not in the same way we teach people how to use a spreadsheet or how to do a business plan. You can only say you are teaching when the environmental circumstances are very concrete, rigid and ‘controlled’. For example, sales persons are ‘taught’ how to handle a conversation with a customer, how to close the sale or how to respond to expected objections. In those circumstances, people ‘learn’ how to respond, what to say, when to say it, etc. It is usually crafted in an almost algorithmic way: if A is true, follow path B, if B is true, follow path C, etc. This is very different from ‘teaching’ accountability or collaboration or competitiveness. Although you can provide theoretical frameworks for those themes, the only way to ‘teach’ them is through reinforcing specific behaviours that would be consistent with them. Behaviours and the rationale of ‘values behind them can indeed be explained, but behaviours occur through reinforcement mechanisms: by management, by peers (as in the peer-to-peer Champions interactions), etc. If you reinforce ‘understanding’ and ‘rationality’ of the message, you’ll get more understood messages, but not behavioural change.

Viral Change tells us that only behavioural change is real change. Communication and training must be adapted so that they support behavioural change. But communication and training per se will not create change as if by magic.

If you want to read more about Viral Change, or want to revisit some of the other myths, you can read it all again in my book of the same title: Viral Change: the alternative to slow, painful and unsuccessful management of change in organisations