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.11Naturally, the parent company sought to emulate SQA s meth-ods.To help things along,Herman Miller s top management promotedand repotted SQA managers and operations personnel into respon-sible positions elsewhere in the organization.From those positions,former SQA people were able to teach others about their fast, mass-customized, and on-time approach to manufacturing.They werepositioned to motivate and guide change more broadly within thecorporation.Everett Rogers s work on the diffusion of innovation provides auseful guide to our expectations for the spread of change from one 031-050 HBE-MCT C3 3rd 10/16/02 2:30 PM Page 4444 Managing Change and Transitionunit of an organization to another.12 Per Rogers, we can expect agreater probability of success if the change contemplated has thefollowing features:" clear advantages over the status quo;" compatibility with peoples deeply-held values, experiences,and needs;" requirements that are understandable;" the option for people to experiment with the change model ona small scale; and" the possibility for people to observe the result of the change inanother setting.Each of these characteristics,not surprisingly,applied to the SQA case.Step 6.Institutionalize Success throughFormal Policies, Systems, and StructuresGetting an organization to change requires risk-taking and effortby many people.So once the objective is achieved, the last thingyou want is for all your hard-earned gains to slip away.And theywill if you don t take steps to prevent it.Gains can be consolidatedand cemented through policies that describe how work is to bedone, through information systems, and through new reporting re-lationships.For example, once it had achieved a key goal over 99percent on-time deliveries of furniture orders SQA institutional-ized its gains through a performance measurement system that kepteveryone s focus on that metric.Everyone in the production facility,from the top to bottom, was expected to know the current level ofon-time delivery, and various rewards were tied to it.To follow through on the change process, it is critical that em-ployees be as concerned with institutionalizing the journey as withimplementing the process itself.Continuous improvement is the ulti-mate goal. 031-050 HBE-MCT C3 3rd 10/16/02 2:30 PM Page 45Seven Steps to Change 45Step 7.Monitor and Adjust Strategies inResponse to Problems in the Change ProcessChange programs almost never proceed according to plan.All typesof unanticipated problems crop up as people move forward.Devel-opments in the external environment can also affect what s going oninside the company.So change leaders must be flexible and adaptive,and their plans must be sufficiently robust to accommodate alter-ations in schedules, sequencing, and personnel.To assess your organization s approach to change based on theseven steps outlined in this section, use table 3-1, Self-Diagnosis. TABLE 3 - 1Self-DiagnosisNow that you are acquainted with the seven steps of successful change, do a littlediagnosis of your own organization.Consider how it has approached change in thepast and how it is approaching any current initiatives.Then score it using this briefdiagnostic test, using a 1 5 scale (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree).Our organization.ScoreMobilizes energy and commitment to changethrough joint diagnosis of business problemsDevelops a shared vision of how to organizeand manage for competitivenessIdentifies leadershipFocuses on results, not on activitiesSpreads change to other units without pushingit from the topInstitutionalizes success through formal policies,systems, and structuresMonitors and adjusts strategies in response toproblems in the change processHow does your organization fare on these parameters? A score of three or less in anycategory points to serious weaknesses that you ll want to identify and correct. 031-050 HBE-MCT C3 3rd 10/16/02 2:30 PM Page 4646 Managing Change and TransitionRoles for Leaders, Managers, and HRBy definition, leaders create an appealing vision of the future andthen develop a logical strategy for making it a reality.They also mo-tivate people to pursue the vision,even in the face of obstacles.Man-agers, on the other hand, have the job of making complex tasks runsmoothly.They have to work out the implementation details, roundup the required resources, and keep employee energy channeled inthe right direction.While leaders create a vision and plan for ex-tending the train tracks into new territory, managers get the tracksbuilt and make sure that the trains run on time.Thus, it is clear whythe seven steps of change outlined here require effective leaders andmanagers, at all levels of the organization.The distinction between leaders and managers,of course,is fuzzyand often arbitrary in practice.An effective leader always needsmanagerial skills, and every competent manager provides leadershipto his or her direct reports.To evaluate your own effectiveness as aleader,it might be helpful to take the self-diagnostic test found in ap-pendix A.John Kotter has described the relationship of leadership andmanagement in a simple two-by-two matrix, shown in figure 3-1.Here we see that transformation goes nowhere when both leader-ship and management are found wanting.Good short-term resultsare feasible when either effective leadership or effective managers areinvolved.But to enjoy long-term transformation success, both mustbe present.HR professionals also have an important role to play in the suc-cess of change initiatives.We stated earlier that putting human re-source personnel in charge of a change program simply paves the wayto failure.Line operators and not staff people from HR or othersupport functions must lead the way within their own units.HRpeople, however, can play a critical supportive role by:" helping management with the hiring and assignment ofconsultants;" reassigning and/or outplacing personnel displaced by change; 031-050 HBE-MCT C3 3rd 10/16/02 2:30 PM Page 47Seven Steps to Change 47FIGURE 3 - 1The Relationship of Leadership and Management++Transformation efforts can All highly successful trans-be successful for a while, formation efforts combinebut often fail after short-term good leadership with goodresults become erratic.management.+Short-term results are possible,especially through cost cuttingor mergers and acquisitions.Transformation efforts goBut real transformationnowhere.programs have trouble gettingstarted and major, long-termchange is rarely achieved.0+ ++ManagementSource: John P.Kotter, Leading Change (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996), 129." arranging for employee training;" facilitating meetings and off-site conferences; and" helping institutionalize successful change through employeedevelopment, rewards, and organizational design.Leaders, managers, and HR must all understand their unique role ina change process and play together as part of a team.In addition,eachmust recognize the critical role of rank and file employees,who mustbe active throughout the change effort.Mistakes to AvoidIt is possible to get halfway to success in your change initiative bysimply avoiding common mistakes:" Don t try to impose a canned solution developed somewhere else.Instead, develop the solution within the unit that needs change
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