During my career, it seems like one thing has caused more disruption than any other – change! I’m not sure why the phenomenon of change has the power to affect so many people in a negative way, but it does. For many, the concept of change triggers a range of powerful emotions – positive and negative. But does it really need to?
Change is inevitable. Whether we like it or not, change is happening to us all every day. I know if I look in the mirror, I don’t see the same person that I was at 25. I sure do have a lot less hair… Change has been happening to me over the years – some good and some not so good. But it has happened, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. I can say with confidence that it is happening to you whether you like it or not.
Change needs to happen in business to stay relevant! In my last blog on change, Change is Inevitable…, I listed some companies that failed to manage change. Their failure to manage change resulted in these well-known companies going from the top of their game to gone – out of business. Lots of well-known companies are gone because they did not pay attention to or meet their customers’ changing demands.
Managing change in an organization is difficult. Change is required for companies to stay relevant and in the game, but some in the workforce choose to resist change. When I say workforce, I mean the entire workforce – management, individual contributors and touch labor – everyone. It really doesn’t matter where you work, because change is hard everywhere, and in any organization or group, you can find people resisting it.
It’s hard to manage change, yet successful companies do it all the time. Can you imagine if Apple, Samsung, Google, Starbucks, Domino’s Pizza, Netflix or Toyota didn’t change? Do you think their team is any better than ours? Of course not! But they’ve learned change is part of growth and success, so knowing how to deal with it has become part of their culture.
I’ve been a part of several culture changes in my career; while difficult, they are rewarding. To make cultural change happen, you need at least three things: an urgent need, or “burning platform” for change (in other words, a situation in serious need of improvement); tools to make the change; and a clear vision of the change. Armed with these three items (at a minimum), you can start to lead change.
Let’s start with the easiest of the three. In most cases the burning platform is usually visible or obvious. It could be that you are losing customers, business is not performing like it used to, products are not as relevant as they once were, product mix isn’t good, etc. No matter what the case, change is needed to secure the ongoing health of the company.
Next, you need tools to help you organize and accomplish the change process. Tools like those offered in our business operating system (BOS) can facilitate this process. These include our company Strategy, viz boards, Musters 1, 2 , 3 and 4, Plans of the Week and the A3 problem-solving tool. Why do we need tools like these to manage change? The BOS, through all its tools, provides an organized communication system (for example, the cascading musters and viz boards) to help inform our team about the status of our company. This shared communication is critical, as we’ll see in a moment.
The BOS also provides tools like dashboards and Pareto analysis (Pareto analysis looks at the frequency of problems – or causes of problems – in a process). These tools identify problem areas using data, so we then can find solutions using the A3 problem-solving method. When used properly, these tools help companies change in the right areas to improve performance.
Finally, you need a clear vision of what the change will be. For everyone to have a clear vision of the change, the reasons for the change need to be communicated throughout the organization – from top to bottom – so everyone understands the “why” and can get behind it. This is usually the hardest step to accomplish. It requires everyone in the company to “buy in” to the necessity for the change and what we are changing. If everyone doesn’t align with the change, the implementation of the change will not last and – ultimately – will fail.
This is probably the right place to talk about resistance to change. There are many reasons why resistance to change develops. An individual’s reluctance to change may be based on personal comfort with what’s familiar, a fear of having to learn something new or concerns about what will happen to that person’s job after the change is implemented (Will it be harder? Will it be eliminated? Will I like my new team or boss?). A company can help people overcome their fears or uncertainties by being transparent about what to expect and making sure people have what they need to adapt to the changes.
The top three reasons an organization like our company may resist change, in my opinion, are:
- Excessive change cycling at the company (constantly changing processes). No one sees a positive result of the changes they have worked to implement because there have been so many shifts in direction, or people are getting burnt out from shifting directions.
- A lack of situational knowledge (poorly communicated burning platform) so no one buys into the “why” behind the change.
- An institutional belief that the current process is optimal or adequate (we’ve always done it this way).
In the end, I believe that you can condense these three reasons into this sentence: The company is not implementing the right change, has not convinced their people that change is necessary, or the employees don’t believe the effort to implement change is worth it.
In other words, if you have identified the right things to change, have a burning platform for change and the tools to make the change, then any failure to make the change falls on management’s ability to lead the change initiative. This includes being transparent and making sure employees know what to expect and have what they need to adapt.
We implemented a strategy to improve our company – to change the company – in 2023. We have identified the right things to change (reduce the number of hours it takes to build a ship), and we have a burning platform (behind schedule). By sharing the strategy with you, we were transparent, and the BOS, these blogs, the Listening Cafés and other things we are doing are communication tools to help employees understand why, what and how we are changing our company for the better.
Although we have made a few minor adjustments, we have not changed the core strategy since 2023. As I said in the Strategy 2024 and Strategy 2025 documents, we shouldn’t change just for change’s sake. The strategy is working, so we are sticking to it. We are now identifying and addressing the specific changes needed to fulfill that broader strategy.
Although change for change’s sake is stupid, change to achieve a better outcome is SMART. Smart changes are what we are driving for at BIW.
See you on the deckplates!
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