People Change - Part 2

Getting people matters right is
essential for any serious change
effort.
PART 2 – APPROACH TO PEOPLE CHANGE

Introduction
People transformation is perhaps the most
important discipline in delivering business
change and under pins everything in change.
Without effective people engagement the risk of
any change initiatives failing is significant.
Not dealing with the people aspects can:
Cause conflicts and disputes,
Invoke an emotional response,
Cause reputational damage,
and impact organisations financially.

Introduction
• Change isn't just about
moving pawn's or changing
the system, to make
change successful you need
to fully understand the end
goal, what are the benefits.
• But more importantly what
the impact will be on your
greatest resource, your
colleagues and on your
clients and other parties.
• Purpose is to help you
consider the People side of
Change.

Summary of Part 1
In part 1 we looked at some of the theory and found that
we need to:
• address a person’s (often unconscious) assumptions and
concerns.
• persuade people not solely with logic but by influencing Hearts,
Minds and with Actions.
• Take time and effort to engage people and we must recognise
the stages people experience.
Part 2 covers our approach to delivering people change.
We have created a two part series:
Part 1 Theory of People Change – touches on some of the theory behind influencing people and changing
behaviour.
Part 2 Approach to People Change – defines our approach and explains the steps and some of the
techniques used.

PART 2 – Approach
to People Change

Approach to People Change
In this part we look at:
Our approach to engagement and achieving transformation in people.
Some of the techniques and disciplines needed to achieve influence and engage people.
The point of engaging people in transformation is to turn:
Resistance Into Adoption
Apathy Into Action
Dissenters Into Fans

What's involved?
There are four aspects of people transformation:
7
Understanding
Stakeholders
Stakeholder
engagement
Training and
Knowledge
Management
Networks and
Roles

Understanding stakeholders
Understanding your stakeholder points of view is key to all our people
transformation efforts:
9
Understand the impact
of change on people
Gather information about
people/stakeholders..
For a large stakeholder base you will often
categorise or group to simplify this analysis.
Stereotypes can help but remember the factors
affecting a persons engagement is different for
everyone.
Don’t limit this to data capture, learn about the
stakeholders point of view.
• Ascertain their thinking, emotions, core beliefs
• Daily routines, behaviours
• What groups do they belong to, who are
influencers/decision makers (see Networks and
roles)
• Cultural, language, Age differences, many factors
can affect how people view your changes.
Understand how will the changes impact people:
• The nature of the change will be different for
different people.
• Not everyone is a winner or find it
acceptable?
• Consider the challenges or blockers to change
adoption for different groups. For example
• Introducing new channels might be more
challenging for elderly or disabled groups
• Economic or geographical factors might be a
blocker to adoption.

Understanding stakeholders
We use a number of tools for increasing understanding include:
• Stakeholder Analysis – identifies everyone with an interest.
• Persona Profiles - are a representation of the goals and behaviors of a group. In many cases they
are captured in a 1-2 page description that include behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and a
few fictional details the make the persona a realistic character.
• Surveys/interviews – make sure these are well designed to avoid bias or leading questions.
• Forums & interest groups – allows you gather more qualitative information about attitudes, views
and reactions to changes.
10
The better you understand people will help to:
• Find the most effective ways to engage with them.
• Build a coordinated strategy across all your people transformation activities.
Keep updating the understanding the more you engage with people

The Engagement cycle
The basic engagement model
Activity or
Engagement Stakeholders
Engagement
Team
Engagement Strategy and Plan

Engagement Strategy and Plan
Based on the understanding you’ve built about stakeholders
and about the changes.
1. Determine your approach to engagement (Strategy)
2. Determine how much effort/activities it will take to
achieve the outcomes you want (Plan). Bearing in mind
the stages people go through that we discussed in part 1
3. Continually Review the strategy and plan and adapt
based on successes and failures and what’s most
effective.

Stakeholder Engagement Activities
Whether its internal or external, communicating your
message can be done in so many ways.
Remember to use methods which engage 2 or more of Logic,
Actions and Emotions
Engagement is often an area of great creativity and endless
possibilities.
I encourage the use of innovative/different approaches these
often get noticed more than the usual ways which people
come “de-sensitised“ to.
Use of story telling is an effective means for giving a
message.
Communications can be simple or involve extensive
Campaigns and may involve Branding & Marketing.
14

Change Agents
Change Agents can be internal or external.
They can help spread the message, give recommendations,
encourage and support others.
Change Agents can be:
an employee trained to support others in adopting changes.
Someone that had a great experience and posts about it or makes
recommendations to others.
An early adopter.
15
One of your greatest asset in communications is people
and one of most effective ways to engage is person to
person.
People are our best advocates for change.
We call these Change Agents.

Response and feedback
How do we find out if our communications strategy is working, that activities are effective?
Monitor key performance indicators and ask the people being communicated with.
Feedback is used both to improve our understanding of the stakeholders and alter our strategy
to improve the effectiveness of engagement
We use two principle methods.
16
The challenge in understanding how effective
engagement is, is getting enough people to open up and
provide an accurate cross section of views.
Focus groups, surveys, and interviews are fine, but they
are labour-intensive and can be costly.
The Listening team or Change Agents are an additional
resource that will cost less and can provide a more
nuanced view.
People Pulse tracks key performance indicators, and
changes in attitude towards your change.
It helps to:
• Track progress towards greater engagement
and the communication goals
• Identify weak spots which require attention
Tools used include:
• Change Readiness Assessments
• Feedback from Surveys, & the Listening team
• Social Media comments
• Other people related performance measures
The Listening team
The People Pulse

Training and
Knowledge
Management
17

Training and Knowledge Management
In part 1 we recognised experience of change is a key influencer to adoption and to overcome
fear.
To achieve change in some cases people may need to learn new skills or be taught new ways
of doing things.
A positive experience of using something or having hands on experience is a powerful tool to
help people change and see the benefits.
18
This can be first hand your own experience through
practice or trials.
+
+
-
-
Learning from the experience of others, early adopters etc.
Accepting the knowledge or experience of others only works
when we can relate to the person and the person or source is in
a position of influence or authority on the subject matter.
Which takes us back to understanding stakeholders and groups.
Ways to provide Positive learning

Training
Training Needs
Analysis
19
Training needs analysis help us to understand the skills gap and
requirements for different stakeholders.
Using our understanding of a persons position, and circumstances
will help us formulate the appropriate plan for addressing their
competency.
Training can be delivered in any number of ways.
With an understanding of the stakeholders needs, nature of
the changes and circumstances we can determine the best
way to address skills and build competency.
Training Strategy
and execution

Knowledge Management
It is often said that people are your most valuable asset.
This is referring in part to the experience and knowledge they have gained.
Knowledge management help us to:
Retain and share the experiences of others involved in the changes
Build upon those experiences
Reduce repetition when a similar situation occurs and the experience does not have to be relearnt.
20
A KM database can be established.
The challenge in larger information sources
is the tagging to allow you to quickly find
the right information you need.
Internet, Social Media Posts and Blogs can also be
useful sources of knowledge.
Many times I’ve gone to You tube to find a video on
how to fix something or googled an explanation of
an error code and how to fix it.
KM
DATABASE

Albert Einstein said "The only source of knowledge is experience."
We place emphasis on both because
Training + Knowledge = Competency
Training and Knowledge Management
21
Training and Knowledge management help us to:
Overcome fears
Break away from old practices
Build competency and skills
Retain valuable knowledge and experience
Capture and Share experiences
Continually improve your organisation

Network and Role Change
We are social creatures, we like to belong to groups.
When groups change or our status within a group changes people may need help with a sense
of loss when removed or with integrating into a new group or role.
23
People Networks can be:
• Formal structures like a company organisational structure.
• Informal like a social groups.
We must recognise:
• the different networks people are a part of.
• the changes to roles and ways that people interact within these networks any
changes bring.

Analysing Networks and Roles
Analysing people networks helps us to:
• Identify different groups of stakeholders
• Identify key information gatekeepers, influencers or authorities in groups
• Key influencers in a network may also be potential Change Agents
You may also want to recognise groups within Social media that maybe
relevant.
We use this information to better understand stakeholders and helps to
formulate a better engagement strategy and plan
It can help early on: building and sustaining the transformation team
from key stakeholder groups.
24
Tools for networks and groups inc:
• Sociograms
• Organisational structure charts
• Statistical analysis
• Existing classification and grouping parameters
• E.g. Socio-Economic class

Changes to groups, role and structure
Changes can have obvious impacts within an organisation
such as a new organisational structure, and roles.
Lead to recruitment, relocation, replacement and
displacement.
It may displace or alter within a group those in position of
authority or key influence.
Your changes could also bring about changes in
groups and roles outside your organisation
For example:
• Mother and Baby group uses a facebook page those not adopting new technologies used in the
group may find themselves more isolated from their existing group.
• Introducing new products can lead to a new group forming for the old products. Mini Morris
Owners clubs.
Groups form or disband when the affinity between
members alters.

Conclusion
In part 1 we looked at some of the theory and found
that we need to:
Address their (often unconscious) assumptions and concerns.
Persuade people not solely with logic but by influencing Hearts, Minds and
with Actions.
Take time and effort to engage people and we must recognise the stages
people experience.
In part 2 our People Transformation approach helps
influence individuals choose change through
Understanding people’s circumstances, Points of view.
Engaging with people in creative and appropriate ways.
Giving people the skills and knowledge needed to change.
Helping people adapt to new networks and their role within groups.

Conclusion
The success of any digital solution or technological change is dependant upon people’s
and society’s acceptance and adoption.
Getting people matters right is essential for the success of any serious change effort.
Taking time and effort to engage people with the changes is important.
For any serious transformation its key to ensure engagement with all stakeholders
A successful approach to People Transformation will:
Reduce change adoption risks and problems
Give a Higher level engagement
Improve employee, customer and supplier acceptance
Improve cooperation
Improve productivity
28

Conclusion
IT Delivery
Business
Readiness
People
Transformation
Combine this People Transformation with IT delivery side and Business Change
Readiness for a complete change approach.

expleogroup.com
Rob Topley
Senior Business Analyst UK
robert.topley@expleogroup.com
Mob: +44 07469760897

People Change - Part 2

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