The source.
The mass.
The direction.
By definition, change is about modifying the status quo, managing a shift from one state to another. This transfer requires energy. It might be the energy required to climb on the exercise bike; that burst of energy to read the latest management book; or the physical and emotional energy required to run yet another quality workshop. Alternatively, it is the energy required to stop something or someone from taking action when they want to be a change inhibitor. Just think how often you work with an organization where people spend more time stopping action from happening rather than making a change work. When thinking about the idea of energy, you need to have a clear appreciation of where it will come from, and how it might affect the change. Carter (1999) makes this point when he suggests that:
The energy that people put into organizations is absorbed in a number of ways. Some of it is used for actually doing things for the customer, such as adding value to a product or service, but little of it is directly productive in this way. Much of it is spent communicating with other people within the organization, co-ordinating activities, planning, motivating, managing, being managed.
When understanding how this energy can affect a change, you might map three aspects:
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The source. |
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The mass. |
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The direction. |
In understanding these issues, you can set out a strategy to harness the power and use it to support the change. Or you might develop counteracting energies that will help to overcome any resisting forces.
This is how and where energy is dissipated across an organization. Simplistically, power is bestowed as part of the formal governance system (in reality power germinates and accumulates in a range of areas within any system as a result of energy used). When you are dealing with an organization, you must determine where the power lies. Then you must use this knowledge to determine what strategy will be appropriate to influence how the energy is directed and applied.
Consider a touring group performing Shakespeare. If you look closely it would be possible to deconstruct the energy within the group, to identify who owns and dispenses different type of energy and so power. One of the group might manage the finances; another interaction with the various theatre managers; yet another might act as the group’s soul, with the energy to ensure that effective relationships are maintained within the group. It is possible to map the various energy levels and, more importantly, how the energy is deployed within the group.
The same idea can be applied to an organization change. In looking around any organization, it is possible to see where the various streams of energy sit. Here is an indication of some of the possible groups:
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Financial: In many organizations you only have to walk through the door to realize that the financial controllers have their hands on the tiller. The construction of the tender documents, the people that have to sign off your contract or the extent to which financial prudence is seen in the building decoration. |
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Operational: In some types of business, the operations managers are seen as the gods. Possibly where production lines are key to the business, they will dictate what changes are acceptable and how programmes should be implemented. |
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Professional In some companies, the professional groups hold control over the key decision-making processes. The lawyers, IT specialists or marketing groups often feel that they are above transformation programmes and don’t need to be involved. |
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Interest groups Sometimes the power actually exists outside the organization. In the UK, for example, government regulatory bodies hold sway over the regulated industries. In other countries lobby groups have amassed power over the petroleum industry. |
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Customer facing groups In professional service firms there is often an absolute focus on the customer experience. In large consulting or accounting firms, the core driver for all resource allocation and decision making takes place on the yield figure. The billable time booked to the customer is the core driver. Any transformation programme will take people away from this billing activity and so you will have to justify the true business value of any change. |
I am not trying to indicate the absolute sources of energy within an organization, simply to highlight how it can surface in different shapes and forms. Your role is to build an intuitive ability to smell out where the sources of power originate when developing the change implementation programme. However, simply understanding where the power resides isn’t enough. You also need to determine the extent of the power under their control.
The mass of a body in terms of the physical world is its weight and is measured in terms of its inertia or resistance to acceleration. This mass is actually nothing more than a bundle of energy and even when an object is at rest it has energy stored in its mass. In understanding this idea, it is possible to consider the energy sources within an organization in terms of the ability to release energy.
However, within any organization, different functions will have differing energy levels. So for one company it might be that the finance department has a significant mass of energy and is able to exert a great deal of influence over the business. In another business it might be that the IT group has a significant energy level but their true ability to exert a force over the company is limited because the real energy is held by the customer-facing teams. When trying to understand the mass within a system, it can help to calibrate it against a set of levels:
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Dense absolutely power and energy to drive or resist change within a business. |
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Medium some energy to effect a control over the change process but subservient to the dense groups. |
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Light limited energy to effect change and will always lose to the medium and dense groups. |
This suggests that the IT department with a light mass level will not be able to force through an idea in opposition to a finance department that has a medium or heavy mass. Although many groups in this position do attempt to take on the stronger opponent, the reality is that unless they are adept political animals they will waste their time and energy in a fruitless battle.
Trying to find a way to accurately map these energy levels is difficult. However, one way is to look at the profiles that the groups promote within the organization. Who is featured in the internal house magazines?; What people sit on the financial approval committees?; Who has the ear of the managing director? Finally, and most indicative, whose budgets gets cut first every time there is a reduction in expenditure? Across most industries, training is the first budget to be reduced when a downturn comes – this is indicative of the limited mass that the personnel function is seen to have. This approach does not offer the definitive answer but it might help to point you in the right direction. The other approach is to follow the money. In the majority of cases the dominant group will have a significant amount of influence over the way that cash is received and distributed.
The final issue to consider when mapping the energy sources within an organization is their direction. Imagine a company facing a crisis. Sales are falling, costs are rising and the market doesn’t look rosy. In the midst of this the marketing director suggests that part of the problem is the fact that the espoused brand values are not being lived by the customer-facing teams. So while the company sells its products on the basis of ‘a quality product with a quality service’, the service end is not being delivered. There are reports of rudeness and inefficiencies from customers, and the marketing director believes this is causing sales to fall. He therefore proposes that the company embark on an organization-wide ‘living what we value’ programme, where everyone goes through an intensive series of workshop and coaching session. Clearly, in such a difficult time, this individual might find it difficult to introduce a change programme that will temporarily raise costs. The key point will be what energy other directors have in resisting his proposal and in particular where the energy is directed. If the finance director has sufficient mass, and chooses to focus it in his direction, then he might well block it outright. However, it might be that he has the mass to stop the proposition but his energy is actually focused on the engineering functions in the belief that their costs are the cause of the problems. If this is the case, then the marketing director can use this space to push his proposal through.
So when trying to understand how any one person or group is targeting their energy, it is possible to allocate it to one of three categories:
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Driver A positive force that is supportive of the change. |
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Doubtful In-between. Not quite a supporter but not quite willing to resist any change process. |
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Driven An energy source opposed to the ideas put forward by the consultant and as such has to be pushed to take every action. |
Although allocating such a category to any person or group is bound to be at worst a guess and at best open to contradiction, it does have some major benefits. The first is that it offers a benchmark against which other stakeholders can be calibrated. Although as an absolute measure it is inaccurate, at a relational level it is possible to build an accurate picture of your supporters and opponents. Second, it offers a dialogue tool that helps to gel the views of different individuals. Often when people come together to effect a change, each will have different experiences of the various power brokers and independent views of their orientation towards the project. Bringing these views together into a single picture helps to create consistency within the project team.
By now you should have calibrated where the energy is contained within the organization. This will indicate both the energy level and where this force is directed. Now you can construct a map, one that will bring this knowledge into a single view.
Imagine a company is being pressured into adopting an environmental quality programme. Fig. 9.3 shows how an outside pressure group is threatening to take the company to court if it does not implement a new environmental directive. The legal department realizes that the company must take urgent action, but the work will incur significant cost and disruption. The net result is that the legal department is applying pressure to three key organizational groups: the finance department, the operations managers and the customer service groups. The legal department has sufficient mass within the business to drive the latter two groups to change without much resistance. However, in dealing with the finance team, they are tackling a group that has more mass and as such they will have a problem in trying to effect a change.
The map indicates that in trying to take on the finance team, the professional unit is unlikely to succeed. However, if they use the additional energy contained within the operations and customer facing groups, the combined force might well offer sufficient power to effect a change.
I am not suggesting that energy within any group must be mapped in relation to another group. I am, however, proposing that it should be possible to intuitively calibrate such detail and use it to ensure that blockage does not occur.
(c) Mick Cope