In my first post, I mentioned my trepidation at entering the blogosphere. What I am calling “trepidation” others might refer to as “resistance to change.” Is change resistance real? Normal? Inevitable? How does it play out in climbing the IT maturity and value curve?
Organizational change management is perhaps the slipperiest of subjects. It’s been heavily researched for years, written about for eons (in some ways, Machiavelli’s “The Prince” was about change management) and yet is little understood. Most research on “why things fail” point to “lack of organizational change management” which I always find to be singularly unhelpful, and perhaps even tautological (we failed to change because we failed to change!).
So, let me take my own blogging experience and see what lessons can be learned, or how some of the more familiar lessons apply. First, people don’t resist change so much as they hold onto the status quo, because, good or bad, like it or not, it is predictable. As human beings, we seek out (mostly) predictability. Our holding on to the status quo assumes significant force when the change we are expected to involve ourselves in either:
- requires new abilities we might not have (or might not know we have)
- requires a willingness from us to involve ourselves in the change
When it was suggested to me that I might blog on a topic(s) near and dear to me, my first reaction was, “I don’t have the ability” (i.e., some combination of tool knowledge, domain knowledge, social knowledge, available time) which translated to an ability issue. My second reaction was, “I’m afraid of making a fool of myself” which translated to a willingness issue. Left at that, I’d still be thinking about blogging (or not!) rather than learning my way through it.
So, what addressed my ability and willingness issues? First, as a byproduct of the acquisition of The Concours Group (my employer) by BSG Alliance, I became exposed to a new vision and ambition for our firm. Our CEO clearly and repeatedly stated, “If we are going to help our clients on their journeys to Next Generation Enterprises (NGE’s), we must first become an NGE. The words were important. The fact that he modeled the appropriate behaviors, including the rapid deployment of a company-wide social network and collaboration hub took us all beyond mere rhetoric into something real and tangible. As a by-product of this collaboration activity, I got quickly exposed to new (to me) terms, trends and technologies. My eyes were opened!
Second, one of my colleagues, Susan Scrupski, reached out to me (and to several BSG Concours colleagues) and offered to be our “blog coach.” She effectively held our hands, pointed us at things to read, tools to try, and guidelines to follow. All of this made it relatively “safe” for us to get on the web and try some stuff – with her watching to keep us on track, or tell us when/how to get back on track. So, my ability issues were addressed through a relatively simple and shallow collaboration with someone who had been there before (actually, was a master blogger!) and with a couple of trusted colleagues with whom I could learn.
What of my willingness issues? It quickly became apparent that blogging provided potential value to our colleagues and clients. It also became apparent that I would learn through blogging (a point that was not intuitively obvious, but was one of the insights I gained from Susan). Last, but not least, it became apparent that blogging behavior was valued by our firm leadership. As my ability issues were addressed, so were my willingness issues.
To net this out – a clear vision of why blogging was important to our firm was effectively and passionately communicated by our CEO. That vision went beyond mere rhetoric by specific actions that supported and made tangible that vision. In support of the vision, expectations from me as to ways I could participate in realizing the vision were communicated (and modeled) by several key opinion leaders in the firm. And they did not just say it, they actually did it. (Most BSG Alliance leaders are active in the blogosphere). Finally, I was assigned a coach, or “change agent” to help ease me in to the blogosphere – who helped me overcome my ability and willingness deficits. In summary, I had clear sponsorship, including a vision and how my blogging related to that future; I had a change agent (Susan) who took time to help me through my willingness and ability issues, and I had motivation (peer pressure and an expectation by management).
These are tiny but very real examples. If you want your workplace to become more collaborative, these are the kinds of things you can do to “grease the skids.”
Filed under: Change Management, IT Management Tagged: | blogging, BSG Alliance, collaboration, Next Generation Enterprise, organizational change management
