Change (3)
In the serenity of Arctic Alaska, I’m continuing to ponder chaos. I’ve mentioned previously six reasons why change is good, three of them fairly personal and three more that seem much more relevant to the organization than to me as a person. But this time I want to talk about something very irritating when change is constant – the desire for folks across the organization to have opinions, to provide recommendations and to influence path or plan, even when they have no expertise, no relevant role, and no reason in the world to be part of the conversation.
When folks get engaged in the change process and change dialogue even when their roles and their aptitudes don’t warrant it, those people tend to muck things up more than contribute anything meaningful. And in mucking things up, they end up slowing down the change process while folks across the organization end up responding to the insane or irrelevant recommendations and in responding to those inputs and opinions, those responsible for achieving change and optimizing the organization end up being marginalized themselves as they focus on the back chatter and inoportune insertions rather than paying attention to the critical details so important in a successful change environment.
Change takes courage. It takes incredible resilience. It takes a tenaciousness that allows those managing a change process to know they are right even when those initial indicators show otherwise and the pundits continue to “pundit” and position themselves for an “I told you so” deep into the project. I have been part of no critical change process that didn’t have folks on the side wanting to engage when they shouldn’t and wanting to offer opinions when they don’t have the background or the expertise in the area of operations to be relevant. I’ve also been part of no critical change process that didn’t spend more time focusing on external events rather than accomplishing the internal change.
That’s a big difference between managing change and project managing. Project managing gives you some authority and responsibility, and in most cases, you have some form of control over cost, schedule and performance. Change managing seems to always start with great promise and then gets deeply mired in politics (if the change is anything significant and broad in organizational context) as folks across the organization begin to offer their advice and recommendations during both the change planning process and in the change process itself.
My wife always tells me, “you just want to be in charge.” That’s really not true. I really don’t need to be in charge as much as I need to feel like have the ability to influence the direction and outcome without others trying to influence me or direct me without merit or without the background to add any value. The more major programs I manage, the more I feel the burden cauded by those on the outside talking in, and only rarely do those people on the outside actually step inside to add value in their discussion and then join me on the blame line for the change process.