 "A one-size-fits-all approach to change processes is counterproductive: Mark Spears")
The more you engage and talk to employees and get them involved in shaping change, the less fear it generates, Mark Spears tells Ritwik Sharma
At a time when technology-led disruptions are posing new challenges to traditional businesses, failure to deal with disruptive innovation may lead mass redundancies. How far can proactive talent management preclude such situations?
I look at it in two ways. One, you can see it as negative, disruptive, or you can see it as a major opportunity. Actually, I see it as a major opportunity for organisations. Take cloud technology, firms are starting to embrace it, particularly around things such as HR, where you can see real opportunities. You become more efficient, more effective in the way you do your transactional activities for HR functions. Because it's got much more functionality around self-service, managing self-service, you need less people focusing on the transactional activity. So things like shared service centres will become smaller. But what it really provides is an opportunity to demonstrate the value addition of the HR function. You can actually draw correlations between what you are doing around your people activities and the delivery of business objectives. So, there's going be a major impact in the way we do things, but actually it enables us to do things more effectively, and I think, become more strategic. That's where I see disruptive technology coming in and being quite powerful. Maybe because I am an eternal optimist, but I see it as a positive. It means people have to learn new skills and do things differently.
Our research showed an awful lot of our clients, about 70 per cent, are reporting that their big transformation programmes are not succeeding, across industries. Some industries would have been earlier to try and transform their businesses - like manufacturing - and others are now starting to catch up, like the banking industry. I think the issue of how to manage change successfully crosses all industries. The approaches that organisations have been taking to managing change have been pretty similar, and they are making the same sort of mistakes, not approaching it in a more effective way. And the reason for that is a lot of these approaches were developed during the '80s and early '90s and they haven't really changed to reflect the changing times.
In change programmes, how important are factors such as their predictability, speed, preparation and need for leaders?
All of those factors are crucial. Being able to understand what's going on in your industry, your sector is really important so that you can get ahead of the curve. You almost need to be on constant change-watch to see what's going on in your market, because if you are not careful then the market you had disappears. The other thing is to try and create the organisation in a way that it becomes change agile, and creates a change culture within the business.
There are certain things you have to do to make that happen. For example, you need to engage with your people much more effectively and early. Traditional approaches that start a change process unites, creates a small team and asks them to go into a project and design the change solution to whatever context - change in the operating model or introducing new technology or merging with another business. They don't really engage with people until you have to. And what the evidence suggests is that when you do engage, you're engaging too late, because it's close to when you have most of the change unravelling, and by engaging with them late you are getting resistance. So it's far better to engage early. Understand the issues and concerns and the challenges that they will have so that you can manage them down, down to a level that's acceptable or manageable when you are introducing changes. That is quite difficult but resistance is natural - people aren't resisting because they are being difficult. They are resisting because it's different and challenging for them and it creates fear. The more you engage, and talk to them about it and get them involved in helping to shape the change, the less fear it generates.
Being digital natives, are millennials better suited to a pivotal role in change management?
I do think they are more adaptable to new technology. They are growing up with it. But equally they create their own challenges. I do think they are more challenging, more demanding of opportunities. They want authority earlier, or get in a position where they can influence. That means you have to engage them, and adapt the approach to meet the varying constituent parts of your organisation. It's not just a cultural or geographical thing, you've got to segment your population in your organisation to recognise that millennials are going to be more involved. They aren't going to do things unquestioningly - older generations might have done that. You have got to be more prepared to explain: Why we are doing this? What's in it for them? What value are they going to get out of it?
At a time when technology-led disruptions are posing new challenges to traditional businesses, failure to deal with disruptive innovation may lead mass redundancies. How far can proactive talent management preclude such situations?
I look at it in two ways. One, you can see it as negative, disruptive, or you can see it as a major opportunity. Actually, I see it as a major opportunity for organisations. Take cloud technology, firms are starting to embrace it, particularly around things such as HR, where you can see real opportunities. You become more efficient, more effective in the way you do your transactional activities for HR functions. Because it's got much more functionality around self-service, managing self-service, you need less people focusing on the transactional activity. So things like shared service centres will become smaller. But what it really provides is an opportunity to demonstrate the value addition of the HR function. You can actually draw correlations between what you are doing around your people activities and the delivery of business objectives. So, there's going be a major impact in the way we do things, but actually it enables us to do things more effectively, and I think, become more strategic. That's where I see disruptive technology coming in and being quite powerful. Maybe because I am an eternal optimist, but I see it as a positive. It means people have to learn new skills and do things differently.
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Which industries are most amenable to adopting new technologies and which are resistant?
Our research showed an awful lot of our clients, about 70 per cent, are reporting that their big transformation programmes are not succeeding, across industries. Some industries would have been earlier to try and transform their businesses - like manufacturing - and others are now starting to catch up, like the banking industry. I think the issue of how to manage change successfully crosses all industries. The approaches that organisations have been taking to managing change have been pretty similar, and they are making the same sort of mistakes, not approaching it in a more effective way. And the reason for that is a lot of these approaches were developed during the '80s and early '90s and they haven't really changed to reflect the changing times.
In change programmes, how important are factors such as their predictability, speed, preparation and need for leaders?
All of those factors are crucial. Being able to understand what's going on in your industry, your sector is really important so that you can get ahead of the curve. You almost need to be on constant change-watch to see what's going on in your market, because if you are not careful then the market you had disappears. The other thing is to try and create the organisation in a way that it becomes change agile, and creates a change culture within the business.
There are certain things you have to do to make that happen. For example, you need to engage with your people much more effectively and early. Traditional approaches that start a change process unites, creates a small team and asks them to go into a project and design the change solution to whatever context - change in the operating model or introducing new technology or merging with another business. They don't really engage with people until you have to. And what the evidence suggests is that when you do engage, you're engaging too late, because it's close to when you have most of the change unravelling, and by engaging with them late you are getting resistance. So it's far better to engage early. Understand the issues and concerns and the challenges that they will have so that you can manage them down, down to a level that's acceptable or manageable when you are introducing changes. That is quite difficult but resistance is natural - people aren't resisting because they are being difficult. They are resisting because it's different and challenging for them and it creates fear. The more you engage, and talk to them about it and get them involved in helping to shape the change, the less fear it generates.
Being digital natives, are millennials better suited to a pivotal role in change management?
I do think they are more adaptable to new technology. They are growing up with it. But equally they create their own challenges. I do think they are more challenging, more demanding of opportunities. They want authority earlier, or get in a position where they can influence. That means you have to engage them, and adapt the approach to meet the varying constituent parts of your organisation. It's not just a cultural or geographical thing, you've got to segment your population in your organisation to recognise that millennials are going to be more involved. They aren't going to do things unquestioningly - older generations might have done that. You have got to be more prepared to explain: Why we are doing this? What's in it for them? What value are they going to get out of it?