by The HLH Team
You have a vision for the future. You jump in, bring in guest speakers, talk it up to the team, and everything goes well for the first couple weeks. Then it falls flat. The change you envisioned gets diluted into more of the same. What happened?
Effective change brings vitality, enthusiasm, and often higher profits to businesses. But it doesn’t happen overnight. 70% of all change initiatives fail and often for the same reasons. Here are the top 5 reasons why, so you can plan for success:
1) You bit off more than you can chew:
Idealism drives change. We develop a vision for what our business can look like, we develop a plan, and we go for it. The tricky part of having a vision is sensing how to portion it out into winnable pieces.
Don’t try to get to “Z” and skip “A” through “Y”. That will overwhelm your team and lead to all around frustration. To achieve your final goal, develop a timeline with smaller, actionable goals along with way.
To build buy-in, position some “low-hanging” wins early on. Small, quick wins will build up momentum for the bigger challenges ahead.
2) Your team hasn’t bought in:
If your team isn’t invested in your change initiative, it’s probably going to fail. At best you’ll need to work harder to convince your staff members about the project’s value; at worst you’ll encounter open sabotage.
Tips To Getting Your Team On Board
Be open every step of the way. Try to be sensitive about the things which you may not think about very often but are foremost on their minds, like job security and the anxiety of new technologies. As excited as you are, they’re equally nervous that you’ll start this and then dump on their shoulders to execute.
Make yourself available by not just opening your door, but coming out of the office and spending informal, casual time in the hallways and break rooms. As anyone who attends conferences regularly will tell you, the “real work” happens in informal settings.
3) Poor planning:
Planning your change initiative is a balancing act. On the one side, you want to line up actionable goals and give the team some quick initial wins. On the other hand, meticulously planning every step can lead to paralysis.
Barriers will happen, and timelines will change. You’ll have to adapt your plan, and then adapt it again. While your planning needs to be about the details, make sure to leave room to learn from your results, improve and repeat as you go.
4) Lack of sustained commitment:
We all love starting new projects. The idealism creates a sense of excitement that seems to push the project forward on its own. It’s a great feeling, but even as we embrace it we need to know that after the excitement comes the work.
For your change initiative to succeed, leadership needs to be committed to change not just the business’s processes, but its culture. Managers need to engage stakeholders for their ideas and feedback, both positive and negative. Effective change isn’t something that you can “get the ball rolling” on and go back to your office.
5) Expecting Instant Success:
The path to effective change is neither linear nor always upward. Most change initiatives follow a “curve”, a pattern wherein morale starts high then dips dramatically as initial momentum wanes and the real work begins. You’re bound to expect a period of anxiety and uncertainty in the project; it’s very normal.
Achieving change that lasts over the long haul takes time. You’ll encounter barriers you didn’t think you would, have frustrations you didn’t think you’d have, and your team will look to you to show vision when it matters most.
by The HLH Team
The Ernst and Young awards are the Olympics of Entrepreneurship. Awarded annually in Calgary, they recognize companies that have climbed into greatness one innovative rung at a time. Winning one is a big deal, and this year 20% of the winners were clients of HLH.
This year, the “Health and Wellness” award went to Fitter International Inc., home of Fitterfirst. Fitter, and its impassioned Founder and President, Louis Stack, makes balance and stability products for workplaces and homes.
Louis is a true entrepreneur. A dedicated downhill ski racer, Louis was sidelined with an injury in 1984 and was desperate to get off crutches, regain his balance after multiple surgeries and get back onto the hills.
With $3000 borrowed from his single-parent mother, he and his brother built the first working prototype of the Pro Fitter 3D Cross trainer. It caught on, and his business journey began.
I chatted with Louis about Fitter’s mission, the honour of their award, and HLH’s impact on the company. The interview was an invigorating glimpse into Louis’s vision not just for his company, but for all the people his company impacts.
“Toothbrushes for Balance”
You don’t start brushing your teeth once you have a cavity, explained Louis. Their effectiveness comes from us using them in our daily routine. It’s the same with balance. Fitter’s products enhance balance and stability daily, along with all the associated health benefits.
Louis introduced me to his friend, S.A.M.: “Practice Stability in daily living to improve Agility at play and to enhance Mobility for life.” It’s his success blueprint, and captures the core idea that if we incorporate balance into our daily routine, we’ll be able to play harder and enjoy more freedom for longer.
Fitter will go into workplaces with an arsenal of core building chairs, standing boards, and adjustable desks. The office they outfit take workplace wellness seriously, and tend to reap increased productivity as a result.
Visit their website to see their line of products: Fitter Website
Louis Stack’s Story: Speed, Balance, and Aging Gracefully
Not your Typical Accountant
If you’ve ever met Bob Hahn, you know that he’s unlike any other accountant. A fellow entrepreneur, he discovered Louis in 2002 and the two hit it off.
Like Louis, Bob puts vision first. Louis describes him as a dynamic and dedicated to Fitter’s success. He wasn’t just passionate about the business, but about the products, as well. You’ll find Fitter products around every corner of HLH, and ideas of workplace wellness permeate across the office.
Louis reiterated what I’ve often heard about Bob, namely that he connects with innovators on a deep level. He “gets” entrepreneurs and offers tools to help them make sense of their company’s financials so that they can make better decisions. It’s about more than balance sheets with Bob; it’s about digging into the numbers and finding out where to cut, shift and grow to save money overall.
Watch The Awards Video:
by The HLH Team
Whether it was to modernize processes, “lean” your office or shift focus to become more competitive, many of us have tried to change our businesses for the better. Success usually hinges on how much buy-in you have from your team. If they don’t believe in it, it’s not going to work.
Effective change isn’t imposed; it’s cultural. Getting everyone on board isn’t a question of what you tell them to do, but how much you listen to their perspective on how to adapt. Here are some tips on how to get everyone buying in to your change initiative:
1) A to Z Communication:
All change is disruptive. When it’s afoot, rumours about what’s happening in the corner office ripple over email and text messages. People get nervous, they whisper about layoffs and if the processes they’ve done daily for years will change. Will they have to relearn everything? Will they be phased out and replaced? What is management’s vision?
Gone unanswered, office whispers are like water on a mountaintop. They will seep into tiny cracks, freeze, and cause an avalanche. Explain your vision to your team before the rumour-mill starts.
Be prepared to answer questions about why change has to happen (please do it with more vision than improving profit margins). We’re creatures of habit, and the more effort you put into allaying (and not minimizing) office fears, the more buy-in you’ll get.
2) Be In-tune:
In a workplace where nothing changes, managers sometimes tune-out the daily ups and downs of what staff are going through to focus on “big picture stuff.” The trap we fall into, however, is getting used to not paying attention and missing shifts in team mood.
To engage your team in change, you need to be sensitive to the mood in your workplace. Engage your team members, both formally and (most importantly) informally. Listen to their feedback and take their concerns seriously.
Effective change is about engaging your skeptics as much as your champions. A team member who feels left out or threatened can derail the whole process, but take the time to hear their opinion and they will start to come around.
3) Your Business is not a Machine:
Your company isn’t a machine, and creating a culture of change isn’t about recalibrating it to perform a different function. Businesses are the sum of the people who show up every day and collaborate towards a common goal.
Effective managers don’t instruct how change is going to happen, they inspire it. Instead of trying to reprogram your staff with high paid speakers and long winded emails, get into the cubicles and onto the shop floor and integrate yourself in a team of peers all striving towards a common goal.
If your peer members feel that embracing change will provide them more purpose in their jobs, they will surprise you with their initiative. If they feel like you’re trying to impose change onto them, however, they will shrink back to becoming cogs in the machine.
4) What are your Obstacles?
No matter how ambitious (or not) your vision is, there will be obstacles. Take a step back to look at your project with a 10,000 foot view. Try to anticipate the barriers waiting for you and create actions about how to pre-empt them.
Your change project is going to start with a burst of enthusiasm. It feels great, but don’t get used to it. At some point, momentum is going to turn to slog. It’s going to get hard, so hard it may feel at times that it’s not worth doing. Having a plan for confronting barriers will help keep you confident about your goal and, by extension, will keep your team motivated.
by The HLH Team
3 Takeaways:
1. Daily morning meetings increase communication and efficiency
2. Adapt our agenda to suit your business
3. It will be awkward at first but be consistent
Communication is key to relationships. That applies to our professional life, too. Most companies expect all their employees to be on the same page without providing a vehicle for effective communication.
Paul Akers, author of the succinct and seminal “2-Second Lean,” turned the abstract notion of a morning meeting into an actionable tool for businesses. I’m going to tell you how we adapted his model to our business, in the hopes that you adapt our model to yours.
How HLH Does It:
We’ve been doing the morning “drum beat” for over a year. Its evolved into a pivotal part of our office day, and happens every morning at 9:15 no matter who is or isn’t there. Team members take turns leading the meeting (with the schedule posted well in advance). Rotating the leader, which effectively puts that person on the spot, often has the extra benefit of highlighting personal strengths that we didn’t know he or she had before.
It’s standing-only and no longer than 15 minutes. There’s a quick pace so it’s crucial to stay succinct and on topic. Here’s what we talk about:
Our Agenda:
1) Wins/ News/ Things to Celebrate:
A morale builder that wakes people up! Must be kept snappy and no rambling.
2) Partners’ Calendars – due dates and pinch points:
This is anything from the last 24 hours that demands our attention. It’s improved client-services and has made us a more effective rapid-reaction team.
3) Workflow Whiteboard:
Our whiteboard is the office’s visual hub and a pivotal driver for our Process Improvement. More about it here: https://hlhcpa.com/video-resources/
4) Education:
If you’re not constantly learning, you’re falling behind. The daily meeting leader is responsible for an education piece. Whether it’s about the 8 Wastes, a Ted Talk video or demoing new software is up to him or her. This is where our team’s creativity shines through.
5) Continuous Improvement:
Continuous Improvement is about the big impact of small changes adding up over time. A morning meeting is the perfect vehicle for it. Each day, we zero in on one department and ask the relevant person, “what’s bugging you in your department.” “Bugging” is the smoke; that’s what we look for to track the waste down.
We also review improvements made from previous meetings and check in on other ideas people might bring forward.
6) Word of the Day:
Try to end on a light note. The daily meeting leader brings this forward, and while it’s often a term related to the education piece (ex. 5S), it can also just be for fun (did you know “cackleberry” is another word for “egg”?)
View/download a PDF of our morning meeting outline here: Morning Meeting PDF
What to Expect:
I chatted with Richard Houle about this. He reminded me to add the caveat that the first month or two will be awkward. New habits always are, especially if your team is acclimatized to walking in every morning, saying “hi” and going to sit in their office or cubicle. You’ve gotta work past it, and reassure your team that they’re doing it right when they start to have doubts. After a couple months, the meeting will become indispensable to keeping your team in sync and ruthless about eliminating waste. Richard noted that when a project or problem emerges, the open communication exists for team members to pull together and get it done faster.
Make it Work for Your Business:
We’ve adapted it for HLH, and we love it. For it to work, you need to adapt it to your business. I encourage you to Google “2 second lean morning meeting” and watch how Paul Akers does it, as well. Steal our agenda and adapt it to what your company needs. If a new team member joins, use the meetings as a chance to teach him or her about your company culture. If a major problem arises, channel the team’s collective energy not proactively confront it.
by The HLH Team
Let’s make this personal. Where is the most amazing place you’ve ever been, a place that took your breath away? Was it a glacier clad mountaintop, a steamy jungle or remote cliff overlooking endless ocean? Take a second and capture the image, feeling, and memory in your head.
Now: write me an email describing that place. Don’t make it too long because I’m a busy man. In a few sentences, make me breathless. Tough to do isn’t it? Now let’s replace “place” with “vision.” We all have visions for our businesses, places we want to be in a year or 5. It’s probably as clear as day in your head, and I’ll bet it’s spectacular. You’ve probably tried telling your staff about your vision. After all, if they are on board it has a lot better chance of happening. But your staff haven’t been getting on board. They just haven’t been getting it. And without sharing the vision, how can you properly manage change in order to get there?
Stop Telling, Start Demonstrating
The solution? Stop trying to show them the picture. You can’t explain your most amazing place to me, so how can you explain your vision to them? You need to show them how the vision can happen, and how the change is going to benefit everybody.
The managers and owners who manage effective change are those who leave their office, stop sending emails and start showing their staff what change looks like. They start finding and eliminating waste, thinking of more efficient ways to perform their daily processes, and empower those around them to contribute. They’re in the trenches, on the factory floor and in the hallways coaching people, asking them about their ideas, and thinking about how to make things 1% better than they are now.
But How?
Effective change management is not about edicts and it doesn’t happen in a day or a week. It is about harnessing the power of your team to collectively push the company to its higher potential. Engrained mindsets have to topple and decades old ways of doing things have to change, and none of it can be forced or coerced.
Think of the receptionist who has always double entered her invoices to make sure they’re accurate. She’s been doing this since her kids were toddlers (they have their own kids now). She’s the ‘old-guard’, and her role in your vision is like a swing-state in a US election; you need to change her mind if you want your vision to succeed.
You can’t change the receptionist’s mind by telling her about your vision. Engage her at her desk (not sitting across from yours with you staring down at her). Talk to her about processes and how they could always be simplified. Ask her about her about the processes she uses and empower her to give you her ideas. Listen to her ideas and implement those that you can. Take the baby steps with her but she needs to cross the line towards change on her own.
That’s how to stop showing and start demonstrating.
Be Consistent
If you don’t think that you have the time, energy and perseverance to see the change through, don’t start. Starting and failing, especially when it leaves others in the lurch, engrains current culture and makes it harder to change the next time. When you step up to manage change, you’re making yourself the most visible person in the office. You’re the only one who can make change happen, and the only one who can let it fail.
All eyes will be on you, and while this puts a lot of pressure on you, if you’re a consistent demonstrator of the change you want to bring about, you will be the one to take the next step into the future of your company.
Stay Tuned…
Over the next few months, we’ll be giving you tools, tips and inspiration for how to implement change management and what to expect along the way. We’re going to be giving practical advice, often based on our own successes and failures, as we’ve managed change from a lean perspective, improving processes and making our company more efficient as we go.
