It's The People Stuff, Not The Technical Stuff

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

I was speaking with a client the other day about a specific change initiative they were about to implement.

The client’s team had been working off of a planning process that was individualized and not institutionalized, and hence, had different leaders at the same level working at different levels of depth and rigor, from the amount of data they utilized during that process to the quality of the analysis and output.

Not an entirely uncommon phenomenon in many big companies and one that had evolved over the years as a result of organic and inorganic growth. All the same, this was now leading to missed opportunities and a lack of true strategic alignment. The time had come, therefore, to put things right, especially as they prepared to embark on an ambitious strategy heading into 2020 and beyond.

So the goal was to implement a structured and fact-based process to drive their annual planning cycle - one that was consistent across the different leaders and business groups, was aligned in terms of analytical rigor and, focused on achieving the overall corporate goal.

As we talked this through, it was pretty clear what the technical work was that needed to be done. We had to outline the structure of the process, the key steps and requirements at each stage. We had to lay out the specific deliverables that would be needed, including the required inputs as well as the related analysis that would be needed for each deliverable. We would also need to detail out the appropriate timelines for each process step and how everything would fit together.

That was the easy part. Because, as is the case with just about any change effort, the technical stuff isn’t the hard part. (There’s probably a dozen competing methodologies you can follow to get anything done and odds are, you’ll come out fine in pretty much any of them.)

No, the hard part was the “people” stuff.

As is the case in most corporations, the team wasn’t brand new and hadn’t been groomed in the vision of the executive I was speaking with. Some of them were new but many had been around for years. They came with their own views and perspectives and biases. They had gone through their own specific experiences that influenced their world view. And they were all “right”.

So the challenge was, really, personal:

Getting them to buy into the need to change in the first place.

Getting them to buy into the value of this level of rigor and depth.

Managing and balancing their differing capabilities in getting this work done (including being thoughtful about personal insecurities).

Ensuring that each person’s strengths are harnessed, so we don’t dampen what makes them unique.

Getting them all to commit to showing up in this new, future-focused, harmonized way.

In other words, not just how can I get them to change, but also, how can I make them want to change?

Of course, there’s always the “My way or The Highway” approach, or the brute force method. But this leads to plenty of organizational distress and, frankly, doesn’t acknowledge what different folks may have to contribute to the end goal (i.e. differences matter). In addition, more often than not, we need to (and should) find a way to work with and optimize the team we have because it’s too hard and too difficult and too expensive to keep changing out your people.

(Don’t get me wrong - there will inevitably be individuals who shouldn’t be on the ship and we need to help them find other avenues for their skills, sometimes outside the company.)

So, really, that’s where we need to focus our attention: on the people stuff. The stuff we don’t really pay attention to in business school, because it’s the soft, squishy, touchy-feely stuff. Except that that stuff matters more than almost anything else. And that’s the stuff that trips up most change initiatives, as well-intentioned and as thoughtfully constructed as they might be.

That’s a tough task to take on, for sure. The people stuff always is.

(A quick note: if you like podcasts, I’ve relaunched mine and you can check out the latest episode on the Voice tab of this website or directly on Apple Podcasts by going here. I’d love your feedback. Thanks for giving it a listen.)