A CHANGE, be it an organization/process/procedure change, be it a people/behavior/habit change, can be sustained not only when motivated by a sound and rational business strategy but also, above all, when the change is a pay-out proposition, i.e. its cost is lower than the expected benefit. Unfortunately to change a person's behavior/habit, especially in complex organizations, is hard job and cannot be switched pressing a start-stop button.
If change is a complex theme, we need to develop and deploy a complex, not a complicated though, solution. I do like to quote J.Kotter saying:
"... what is missing is a real sense of urgency, a distinctive attitude and gut-level feeling that lead people to grab opportunities and avoid hazards, to make something important happen today, and constantly shed low-priorities activities to move faster and smarter, now ...".
It all starts with a sense of urgency, in fact raising urgency is the first step of Kotter's 8-step framework:
1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
- Examining the Market and Competitive Realities
- Identifying and Discussing Crises, Potential Crises, or Major Opportunities
2. Creating the Guiding Coalition
- Putting Together a Group with enough Power to Lead the Change
- Getting the Group to Work Together like a Team
3. Developing a Vision and Strategy
- Creating a Vision to Help direct the Change Effort
- Developing Strategies for achieving that Vision
4. Communicating the Change Vision
- Using Every Vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new Vision and Strategies
- Having the Guiding Coalition role model the behavior expected of Employees
5. Empowering Broad-Based Action
- Getting Rid of Obstacles
- Changing Systems or Structures that Undermine the Change Vision
- Encouraging Risk Taking and nontraditional ideas, activities and actions
6. Generating Short-Term Wins
- Planning for Visible Improvements in Performance, or “wins”
- Creating those Wins
- Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible
7. Consolidating Gains and Producing more Changes
- Using Increasing Credibility to change all systems, structures, and policies that do not fit together and do not fit the transformation vision
- Hiring, promoting, and developing people who can implement the Change Vision
- Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes and Change Agents
8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
- Creating a better performance through customer- and productivity-oriented behavior, more and better leadership, and more effective management
- Articulating the connections between new behavior and organizational success
- Developing means to ensure Leadership Development and Succession
