Three Key Success Factors for Transforming Your Business

Mindset, Infrastructure, Capability

Michael Hagemann

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781951527327
• eBook ISBN: 9781951527334
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

This book is aimed at consultants and managers, HR managers, and project managers who need to lead or implement change programs.

There are many different change management models–some are very complex, others are not very effective. With the MIC (mindset, infrastructure, capabilities) model there is an easy-to understand and easy-to-use model presented that has proven itself many times over in practice. It is useful in both private and business settings, in both large transformation projects as well as smaller change projects. Every change requires the right mindset, the right infrastructure, and the necessary capabilities.

MIC comes from practice and is for practice.

This book is aimed at consultants and managers, HR managers, and project managers who need to lead or implement change programs. Executives and their teams will benefit from the book as much as individuals who want to change or face change in their lives. Finally, it addresses all those who watch the changes of our time and are curious to understand more deeply how changes do not have to be passively endured but can be actively understood and lived as an opportunity.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

There are many models, methods, and ideas around change management (CM). More and more new models are created and implemented. The CM consulting industry is growing continuously.

And yet CM remains an unsolved topic. No model was able to prevail; relevant books flood the market.

CM is and remains a virulent topic because it is ultimately about people; that those affected by the change are not overlooked, that someone takes care of them and shows them a way to handle the change and when change is increasing exponentially in all areas of life.

In both private and business, it seems difficult to find models or principles for the challenges of change that are readily applicable. The question of change design remains: What is the best way to manage change? As a rule, you start with the leaders. While there are rarely executives who negate the need for change, they still exist. Only recently did I hear a senior executive responding somewhat blankly to the question of whether CM access already exists: “We do not need Change Management. We tell people what to do and implement it.” However, this kind of leadership is becoming less and less accepted. What impressed me a great deal a few years ago when I was allowed to get some insight into the management and leadership structure of the French army was the “mindset” of the officers, who expressly displayed a participatory and empowering style of leadership. All those who want to provide leadership in the 21st century need sooner or later to ask themselves how people can best be guided in and through change. Especially when the pressure to succeed is high and financial success must be achieved, the tendency for top-down instruction is great as it is still considered an excellent way to move an organization quickly toward success. Companies with more than 30 years of history work with silo structures and steep hierarchies. Most managers would prefer the achievement of financial goals to the rollout of soft, engaging change interventions, especially as they are usually measured exactly on the former.

The need to convince managers however to integrate CM into projects is becoming less common, and it has changed in the last 10 years, in our view. Today, I rather hear statements like these: “You do not need to convince me of CM, I know it’s important; CM is so important that it has to be part of our daily tasks.” So do projects need their own CM workstream? In practice, however, there are some arguments in favor of not forcing CM into a special workstream, but rather weaving it into various project activities. On the other hand, it often shows that CM is not self-propelling and—once initiated—does not evolve of its own accord. Instead, CM tends to disappear gradually unless explicitly promoted.

Maybe CM can be compared with communication. It is clear to everyone that in any case good communication should be provided and communication cannot be separated from other business life. Yet, if communication is not explicitly promoted in a department with appropriate leadership, it will not get the importance it deserves, and communication deficits will be the result.

Back to our question: How can change in companies best be managed? Some of the newer models, such as VUCA,1 describe on a meta-level how to handle changes in our time. These models help to explain reality and prevent you from quickly engaging in inappropriate or unhelpful activities that do not help with the change. On the other hand, these models often do not provide tools, so their applicability is unclear. Other models are not concrete enough: Little stakeholder analysis, communication, and reflection on systemic change do not result in a valid behavioral change. A model is needed that automatically becomes part of every change and is easy to apply. We have used and implemented the MIC (Mindset, Infrastructure, Capability) model developed by myself in a wide variety of change formats, from smaller to complex cultural changes.

It can be used both as a structural model that describes basic principles for each change and as a toolbox from which the appropriate tools can be taken for any given change. The systemic change approach rightly emphasizes that changes must always be seen in the overall context and that successfully implemented change takes the system as such into account. On the other hand, CM can also get lost in systemic analyses and processes which produce impressive system representations but little change.

When we talk about change, there are two dimensions; the differentiation is somewhat striking, but it is precisely in the rough-cut point of view that it becomes clear what this is all about.

On the one hand, there are the harsher elements of change: everything that has to do with new processes, new IT, new structures, new systems. On the other hand, it is about the human being, about behavior and mindset change, about an increased acceptance for change. Both factors do not behave additively but multiplicatively. They influence each other. H × S = R (hard times soft factors produce the result) is the simple change formula.

Toolbox

H × S = R

The formula states: Hard times soft factors produce the result.

In every change, both factors are essential: A poorly structured and planned change does not contribute to success—even if one had generated a high level of acceptance. On the other hand, even the most well-planned change is doomed to failure without human acceptance.

A poorly planned change does not improve even with an increase in acceptance through CM and vice versa: The best project plan, the best new technology, the best new team structures will not be sustainable without a well-implemented change in behavior. For both cases, we see ample examples.

Case Study

A complex IT implementation did not fail because it was not sufficiently communicated or because not enough acceptance was generated.

On the contrary: Since the IT was over 40 years old and the process was largely analogous, due to filling in forms, there was a longing for the new system. No change resistance was present. Instead a great openness and almost childlike waiting for Santa on Christmas morning. The IT application as such however did not work. Although users were extensively trained, it turned out that the software was too complicated and not sufficiently adapted to the needs of the company. CM could have been manipulative or improved feedback loops but that would not have been successful, according to the formula H × S = R, because the “hard” part of the change showed significant weaknesses.

The other variation where a change is perfectly planned, but the soft factors are not taken into account, is probably more common. Of course, there are, as already mentioned, only a few managers who march in the old manner adopting to the motto: first comes the change, those affected will bow to it—or they can go. According to our observation however, there is also a pro forma integrated change approach. This is particularly evident in the fact that, first, the change budget is canceled whenever pressure increases or the change does not go as predicted. This reveals where the real priorities lie. A bit of communication, a bit of Why and What, that’s enough. Practice shows that the change effectiveness here does not meet expectations because only pro forma change activities are carried out here, without thinking about actual change impact.

Leave the corporate context for a moment and enter the private sphere to face the challenge of personal behavioral change. Above all, we want to focus on changes that we have not chosen ourselves. The dictum attributed to Peter Senge, “People don’t resist change, they resist being changed,” makes it clear where the problem lies at the core of the change. Being a passive object and not a subject of change is not easy per se.2

Of course, there can also be internal resistance when I decide to change myself: a new job, a move, a new partner, a new resort. When these changes are intrinsically motivated, they usually contain more positive energy that outshines uncertainties, ambiguities, and doubts. But it becomes clear what core change is all about: Overcoming resistances that arise when habitual behavior or thinking has to be changed. A new job implies new people, new structures, a new environment. The new creates uncertainty, since habitual behavior may no longer fit. A move suggests leaving a space, which gives security. As a rule, a new partner does not fall from the sky but trained behavioral and communication structures may no longer fit. Even a new holiday resort spreads, at least in the beginning, insecurity. Very nice to watch when new guests arrive: Questioning looks: is it okay here? Was the money properly invested? and so on.

The holiday example can show yet another dimension of change: the emotional balance. Whenever a change takes place, we must emotionally follow the change and at the same time strive for inner balance ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Abstract
• Contents
• Foreword I
• Foreword II
• Preface
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Epilogue
• Appendix
• Reference
• About the Author
• Index
• Backcover