Confessions of a change manager
In the second of a series of blogs about culture, skills, leadership and change management, Box SVP and EMEA General Manager David Benjamin looks at his experiences in change projects
Change management is often presented as a series of processes, above which sits a layer of management to oversee everything and ensure it runs smoothly. If only…
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. For successful change management, you need a culture that is accepting of change and you also need to have the people and skills to make it happen; otherwise, the results can disappoint. Or, as George Westerman, Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy, has put it: “When digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.”
To frame what I’m about to write, let me use as case studies a couple of my former companies.
Before I joined Box I held executive roles first at Guardian Media Group (GMG) and then at BT. GMG is best known for The Guardian, one of the world’s best known newspapers and media brands, and we all know that newspapers are struggling in the face of changing information consumption habits, the web and social media. The transition to the web was very tough for newspapers: it disrupted the distribution and finance models, made new news and opinion sources available, and collapsed the time between events and coverage. Print publications are expensive and time consuming to create, lay out and distribute and it’s hard for a product that was traditionally mostly focused on the UK to compete globally against some of the world’s biggest media companies. Some newspapers have chased clicks, others have become sponsored vehicles, yet others are slashing costs. We retrained journalists to be multimedia contributors, appealed to our audience for citizen journalism, created in-person events and new subscription models designed to enhance loyalty, and we chased international growth.
At BT I was part of one of the world’s largest telecoms companies but everybody knew that we could no longer prosper on fixed-line call minutes in a world coalescing around commoditised, free online services. So we doubled-down on broadband and ICT services, and even created a subscription TV sport business; later, in 2015, BT went back into the cellular business it had exited many years before.
I’m not going to pretend that everyone followed management’s lead at GMG and BT nor that our changes were all unqualified successes. It’s not a coincidence that change management has its background in processing grief and helping people go through shock, denial, anger and fear to acceptance and commitment. The process of interrupting well-grooved processes, changing tasks, creating new roles and developing different habits can be traumatic. But the very process of re-examining the organisation, assessing its processes, matching people to the tasks that need to be accomplished, and thinking hard about (and communicating) a vision are also immensely powerful instruments that provide a platform for re-energising the enterprise.
At Box, we have far less of the legacy that goes with veteran organisations like BT (with roots in the 1840s) and GMG (founded as the Manchester Guardian in 1907) but we have still had to manage change, from systemic tweaks to new strategic directions such as switching from a focus on Enterprise File Sharing and Synchronisation to Cloud Content Management. Change management never finishes: it is the organisational equivalent of painting a long bridge that needs a new paint job the moment the coat is complete.
I don’t profess to have all the answers as to how to make change management a success but I can think of four positive actions here:
You need a plan. There’s some truth in the idea that any plan, even a bad plan, is better than no plan. Everybody experiencing change needs to be able to spell out what the vision is, and know the steps to realising it.
Square pegs don’t fit round holes. A great performer at one task or in one environment needn’t be a great fit for another. Listening to the person and what they’d feel excited by can elicit outstanding results.
Keep an open door. Change plans change: there will be course corrections aplenty as unexpected obstacles pop up to stymie your best efforts and they need swift attention. Being able to ‘whack a mole’ means valuable momentum is not lost, so keep the door open and be ready to swing into action.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Peter Drucker said that, and he was right. Creating a culture where people feel respected, trusted, recognised and rewarded is key to making change work. It requires hard work, a listening ear and the humility to admit some moves were wrong. But it is worth it.
With machine learning, robotics and the rise of automation, all of us will have to be ready for more change in our industries, the ways we work and manage, how we recruit and train and more. I’d love to hear about your change management success stories… and failures. Please join the conversation below or get in touch with me directly.
