Marty Jacobs has worked with countless nonprofits and government agencies and knows that 80% of all “change management” efforts fail. If you’ve ever worked on a strategic plan and then tried to implement it, you’ll know how hard it is to actually change the way you do business. That’s why Marty is so excited to talk about a useful framework for implementing strategic change. We had a great discussion in White River Junction (at the studios of CATV) last week with Marty and a small group of smart nonprofit leaders about what good planning means and how to overcome the predictable barriers to that keep your people and organization from doing its best work.

It’s called D.I.C.E. — what you need to make your change effort succeed: Duration (enough time), Integrity (quality of the team), Commitment (from the bottom and the TOP), and Effort (realistic assessment of what it takes). This “tool” is informed by a seminal article “The Hard Side of Change Management” researched and written by Harold L. Sirkin, Perry Keenan, and Alan Jackson and published in the Harvard Business Review in October 2005. Here’s more:

• Duration: The time it takes to complete a change effort is less important then the time between project reviews. Therefore, a project should be formally reviewed every six to eight weeks. Milestones should be built into the project plan at those intervals.
• Integrity: This is also known as performance integrity and is defined as the extent to which organizations can rely on teams of employees to execute change projects successfully. Teams need to consist of the right talent to implement the change, including an effective team leader and the right combination of employees to build commitment to the effort.
• Commitment: There must be commitment from both the top executives and those who must deal with the change.
• Effort: Most change initiatives fail because those who must implement them are already overloaded. Change management teams need to estimate the amount of additional effort it will take to implement the changes successfully and add no more than 10% to each person’s workload.

As John Kotter says in Winning at Change (1998): Producing change is about 80 percent leadership — establishing direction, aligning, motivating, and inspiring people — and about 20 percent management — planning, budgeting, organizing, and problem solving. Unfortunately, in most of the change efforts I have studied in the past 20 years, those percentages are reversed. Our business schools and work organizations continue to produce great managers; we need to do as well at developing great leaders.

You can see Marty Jacobs’ useful slide deck here: http://bit.ly/dice_change_mgmnt and check out the resources (below) here and think about these questions as you move your organization through successful transformation!

1. Describe your project.
2. Do you have milestones determined for the project? If so, what is the length of time between reviews of those milestones? If not, what milestones could you build in?
3. Describe your assessment of the skills of The team leader? The team members?
4. What gaps in skills might you need to fill?
5. Does each team member have enough time to spend on the effort? If not, what can you do to make that possible?
6. Do your senior executives regularly communicate about the importance of the change effort? Is that message convincing and consistent over time? If not, what can you do?
7. Has top management devoted enough resources to the change effort? If not, what can you do?
8. How many additional hours must staff put in to implement the change effort?
9. What level of resistance are you experiencing? What can you do about it?

Special thanks to the folks at CATV in White River Junction for hosting this stop on the Common Good Vermont 2010 Road Show (and Key Bank for their sponsorship) and, especially, to Mary Jacobs of Systems in Sync for sharing her skills and experience so generously. You can get in touch with her at marty@systemsinsync.com

ARTICLES

“The Hard Side of Change Management,” by Harold L. Sirkin, Perry Keenan, and Alan Jackson, Harvard Business Review, October 1, 2005.

“Winning at Change,” by John Kotter, Leader to Leader, Fall 1998.

BOOKS

Appreciative Inquiry Handbook, David L. Cooperrider, Diana Whitney, and Jacqueline M. Stavros, 2005.

Beyond Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today’s Transformational Leaders, Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson, 1994. .

Encyclopedia of Positive Questions, Volume One, Diana Whitney, David Cooperrider, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, and Brian S. Kaplin, 2005.

Organization Development: A Process of Learning and Changing, W. Warner Burke, 1994.

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators, Patrick Lencioni, 2005.

Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society, Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers, 2005.

Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, 2003.

The Answer to How is Yes, Peter Block, 2002.

The Change Leader’s Roadmap: How to Navigate Your Organization’s Transformation, Linda Ackerman Anderson and Dean Anderson, 2001.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, Patrick Lencioni, 2002.

The Empowered Manager, Peter Block, 1987.

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, 2006.

The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry, Sue Annis Hammond, 1998.

Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges, C. Otto Scharmer, 2009.