Introducing Change? It’s all about people!

Are you planning on introducing change within your organization? Change can be: new business processes, new workflows, new organization structure, new technologies, new culture.  It can be all, a mix of some of those or even only one of them.  In any case it is a change and has to be managed properly to achieve its objectives.

To manage change in your organization you need two people working coherently to achieve the organizational targets; a Projects Manager and a Change Manager.  The Projects manager will focus on all the technicalities, operations and details of the change, while the Change Manager will focus on the Human aspects of the change.

I’ll focus here on the Human aspects.  Upon introducing change you need to make sure to attend to every point in this list:

1- Know for yourself first as a decision maker why the organization needs this change.  Change has to be for the development and moving forward reasons, so if the change you’re planning will not move the organization forward then you should not do it.

2- Once you answer the question why the change? focus on getting the buy-in of the people.  You need to start from top to bottom.  Make sure all managers on all managerial levels can answer all these questions: What exactly are we changing? Why do we need this change? how are we as individuals going to benefit of it? how long will we need to work until we finish the transitional phase? what new skills do we need? what do we employees need to do to fit into the change?
Why start from top? because during change every employee looks up for his superiors to have answers for all the concerns and questions.  They need to feel secure and it is their managers who can clarify everything for them.  If people at the top resist the change then no one in the organization will support it.
Once every single employee in the organization knows the answers to all these questions you can start gradually introducing the plan.

3- Build the sense of ownership.  Collect feedback and ideas from all employees as to how they think the organization can have a smooth transition.  Discuss ideas and adopt the ones that can serve the objectives. This way employees feel that they are part of the process and that it is not imposed on them.

4- If drastic changes are needed like employee layoffs or changes in structure or functions.  It is advisable to take your time explaining why this has to be done and how is it for the best with special focus on the employees who will be directly affected.  Main aim is to get the support of the people and avoid their resistance. You need to make sure no negative vibes are spreading.

5- Make sure to communicate the message over and over again, because employees can spread negativity around the office.  You can find some employees resisting the change and if they keep spreading their negative message they will hinder the success of the change process.  You need to make sure their negative message does not circulate.  These employees have to be handled individually and you have to try to make them understand why this is necessary and how it will turn out to be positive even for them.  Wining them on your side will give a good push in the right direction.

6- It is a good idea to make a “concerns and suggestions box” where employees can send their concerns and why they don’t want the change so that you can answer their questions and ease their concerns.

7- The Change manager and the projects manager have to work together to make sure that the change process does not proceed faster than the people’s support and buy-in plan.  It is very important to make sure that you won’t get resistance because the entire change process can fail if resisted.

Change is a critical process and if not handled and planned well with special emphasis on the human factor of it, it will fail!

Employees are the assets of any organization and making sure that they are satisfied and that they understand why the change is needed and making sure they feel secure is very important for the success of any change process.

A very useful article about the real cost of employee turnover

https://www.standardforsuccess.com/infographic-the-real-cost-of-employee-turnover/

Truly Human

I just came across this wonderful speech by a wonderful Leader and I thought I’d share it with you

It is my dream to contribute in creating a truly human organization.  An organization with human-centric culture, that realizes that human beings are their most valuable assets.  And as Mr. Bob Chapman said making our employees feel good about themselves contributes in solving a lot of our social and economic issues.

These are the words of a true leader, who knows that leadership is about inspiration and getting the best out of people.  Leadership is about making my employees happy so that in return they would make my customers happy.

Another story that I got to know about Mr. Chapman is:

http://www.trulyhumanleadership.com/?p=645

Another proof to how being human and caring about your people makes more money actually than laying off people.  Organizations need to be more human and they will be amazed by the fact that they will make more money than what they do today.

The 8 Things About Leadership I Learned From My Puppy

Dale Myers' Blog: Think. Plan. Act. Repeat.

I’ve really fallen behind with my writing. You could say it’s gone to the dogs. For the past three weeks finding time to write has been impossible. You see, we decided to get a puppy named Cassie. And, for those of you that have barked up this tree, you know that with a puppy around, finding quiet time to write is about as hard as finding your dog’s favorite bone.

But while my writing has suffered, I still think a lot about leadership. This morning I was thinking about the similarities between leading dogs and people. I know this sounds a little strange – but, people and dogs have a lot in common. Both have needs, personalities, and moods. They share a desire to learn, be challenged, feel secure, and receive recognition. Finally, both dogs and people react to different leadership styles.

I’ve think there are 8 leadership actions that…

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The 1 “Killer” Mistake That Project Managers Make…and Why They Keep Making It!

VERY TRUE … I have been in this situation, the GM of the company committed to a deadline to deliver a project and I was the project manager and I did the mistake of not having the courage to stop him. The result was agony. We took double the time to deliver the project because the deadline he committed to was extremely not realistic given the requirements. It was a nightmare and the customer was furious and by the time I finally delivered and the project worked successfully the whole team was worn out and under stress for too long!
Ever since this experience I learnt the lesson and I never allowed it to happen again!

Dale Myers' Blog: Think. Plan. Act. Repeat.

Being a project manager is hard work. You have to deal with team members, sponsors, stakeholders, subject matter experts, and other nosey types that all have opinions. Some of these folks love to sit around and dissect every action and decision that a project manager makes. Often they are just looking for something to criticize. When they find a perceived mistake, they have the nerve to call it “educational,” or worse, a “learning moment.”

Who needs this crap, right?

As I’ve written in the past, mistakes happen (see my post, “When Bad Things Happen to Good Leaders”, December 2012). It’s how you deal with mistakes, and how you learn from them that matters.

“There are no failures – just experiences and your  reactions to them.”  ~ Tom Krause

There’s one mistake that I often see Project Managers make from which it’s hard to recover. It sits at…

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Samsung Entaleq …. OR rather Stand Still!

Samsung Entaleq is a competition done by Samsung Egypt for developers.  Any developer who has an idea and is able to implement it on Android or on SMART TV can join.  The competition started back in April 2013.  I joined with an application on Android with two friends.  The deadline for us to deliver was July 31st.  We were promised to know the winners on August 15th.  The prizes are monetary, Samsung products and some sort of partnership with Samsung for the top three to help in marketing products and making money out of it. http://www.samsungentaleq.com/samsung-entaleq/Default.aspx

August 15th passed and nothing was announced.  We kept calling them several times to know why the delay but we never received an answer except we will inform you.  Ever since several dates were set and then postponed again to announce the winners. Through September, October and now November all what we are getting is emails to postpone the results.  Now all applications are tested already and published on the Samsung store so they are not still testing or anything.  We were also told that the committee already decided on the winning applications.  The last email we received was today postponing the announcement again to an unknown date? They said we will inform you when.  What is this? what kind of planning and organizing is this?  How come Samsung would act like amateurs?? Doesn’t Samsung have standards? is it OK to lie to the contestants like this??  What could be an acceptable reason to delay announcing the winners for almost 3 months!!!!  I have every right now to think that they are liars and they never intended to give the winners the prizes and they just did it as a marketing campaign and they will never pay anyone anything.  I also have the right to believe that it could be fixed from the beginning and that they agreed with the winners even before the competition starts and it was all an act.

I have every right to believe anything because I was not respected by Samsung so why should I respect them???  How come a company like Samsung acts like this??  Doesn’t Samsung care about its name and reputation?? Why did they leave this competition to some amateurs to plan and organize??? IS there a competition really or is it a hoax??  Did someone already take the prizes and we are being lied at?? or did they announce prizes that they can’t afford to give and this is why they are postponing??

I don’t know exactly what they they are doing but definitely it is a Shame and it shows disrespect to the contestants.

By the way for those who don’t know Arabic,  Entaleq in Arabic means launch, start with speed, dash, set off ….. along this meaning. In fact it is not Entaleq at all, but rather Stand Still!!

Just do it!

Waiting for the perfect timing, the perfect decision, the perfect way to put it ,……. You will wait forever!

so many senior managers, CEOs or company owners stall and delay decision making because they are afraid of making the wrong decision.  “What if I make the wrong decision? how much will it cost me?” …. Well from my point of view, waiting for the perfect decision will cost you much more than deciding and moving forward.  Even if you decide on something and turns out to be a wrong decision, you have the mistake to learn from and become better able in the future to make the right decision.   But delaying, stalling and hesitating will make you stand still.  You will not learn from a good or bad experience because you will not have an experience to learn from.  The worst thing in the world is standing still.

Moving forward is always the way to grow and become better. And believe it or not even wrong decisions and mistakes are a form of moving forward because you learn from the experience and use it to grow.

I am not saying of course being hasty, but once you have the information you need and you studied your move right, make up your mind and take action. Don’t stall and hesitate.

Stop wasting opportunities and “Just do it!”  ….

Lethal habits

 

Two habits I find to be lethal around the office: Procrastination and Perfectionism.  They waste time, money and energy.  Procrastination is the habit some people have of delaying tasks for no good reason except that they keep coming up with excuses why it should wait.  Sometimes it is because they think they can’t do it but they don’t want to admit it, because it is a big task and they are unable to divide it to smaller manageable tasks, because they are wasting their time on other issues that don’t really matter, because they don’t like the task but can’t say, …. so many reasons for procrastination and the result is delaying work, missing deadlines, increasing project budgets, increasing costs, angry customers and so many other negative effects.

 

Perfectionism is also another lethal habit, it is when a task takes too much time more than it should because the person wants it to be 100% perfect, so he keeps revising his work too many times and he always finds something to fix even if it is not relevant or effective.  One of the reasons of procrastination is also perfectionism, people tend to wait until it is the best time to do the job and finish it perfectly well and this time never comes! Of course perfecting your work is a must but when it turns into a negative thing that makes you take double the time to finish a task you must stop and ask: Am I spending my time right?

 

Every job must take its right time to finish it right no more and no less.  Taking too much time under the claim that I am perfecting what I am doing is actually too much a cost to handle.  Companies can actually lose a lot of money and customers because of missing deadlines.

So how can we handle employees with such habits?

1- Make sure they are doing the right job for their character.  They should not be involved in any job that requires writing documents, offers, presentations, doing designs,….. Anything of the sort will take forever to finish and they will never get it done.

2- When assigning a task for such people never assign big tasks at once.  Divide any big task to smaller manageable ones and give them the small ones, one by one

3- Don’t tell them the real deadline, but rather make it a sooner tighter deadline to make them start feeling guilty for being late before your actual deadline.

4- Keep explaining the scope and aim of the task and reminding them of it so that they won’t go on perfecting irrelevant details and to make sure they understand the task at hand 100% so that they won’t procrastinate because they can’t do it.

5- These people must be handled with care. Never tell them in the face that they are wasting time and costing the company money but rather try to encourage them and give positive feedback about their work but at the same time keep reminding them of the time factor.

6- Assign check points with every project they are involved in and don’t wait for the delivery date to check on them.  Check points will make you evaluate the work done on intervals and remind them of the deadline.  Keep pushing on the time factor but gently without stressing them out.  Most probably people with these habit if stressed out will delay even more.

7- Give them training courses on time management.

Sometimes employees with such habits produce very high quality outcome but their throughput is the problem, so don’t lose them or get rid of them but rather try hard to get the best out of them.

But what if you keep trying and they keep wasting time and increasing your costs? what if it starts to threaten your business and reputation in the market? what then? Needs thinking especially in the case of perfectionists.  I would say if you keep trying and there is no other way but to replace this employee then do it because at one point of time you will regret the lost opportunities because of them.

Don’t over do it …. Take it easy

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57601149/dont-lean-in-kick-back/

A good read!

More and more on productivity

I agree with this article, we need to plan our time right and choose carefully what to do when:

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57589536/6-things-that-feel-productive-but-arent/

especially the point of pointless perfectionism. Some people waste a lot of time and effort trying to make things perfect when actually it doesn’t  have to be 100% perfect.  Or maybe if you go do some other thing and be more productive, when you come back to the same task you will do it even better.  Plan your time right and you will be more productive.