There are two ways of looking at our craft. Either we look at it as the cross that is put upon us, or we can choose to design that cross ourselves.
I have a very simple way of looking at the world of organizational change management and this translates into an actionable approach that I call ‘the cross’. Don’t worry, there is no religion involved in my approach, although I tend to apply it as a ritual in all the work I deliver.
The 4 Elements
The so-called cross is based on the 4 different elements of change management (according to … me). They are: Communication, Learning, Organization and Performance. Each element represents a specific need that people have during a change. Below is a short video where I explain the 4 elements:
In short, this is what it comes down to in our work:
- Communication: people need an identity to connect to so they can see what is in it for them. Constructing an identity for your project is necessary in order to provide an answer to the question “What’s In It For Me?”.
- Learning: People need to know what is expected of them in terms of attitude, knowledge and skills. A part of this is provided in the form of classroom-trainings (the know-how), but the largest part of the knowledge transfer will take place in practice, during the testing phase and the phase of problem-solving. That is why the learning work is never restricted to the classroom and – most of all – we need to carefully build a network of local ambassadors for the project.
- Organization: this is the need to know “Who does what?”. This means that the setup of the future roles and responsibilities needs to be clarified upfront. Next, the support structure in the long run needs to be setup, i.e.: the community of ambassadors who will be responsible for the sustainability of the solution.
- Performance: Finally, people need to know what exactly will change in practice and how this will affect their working habits and usage of time. This includes a detailed follow-up of the chronology of tasks and the creation of a uniform procedure that is shared among all departments.
The Cross
One day I thought: ‘Why not take this reasoning one step further? If this is the cross we need to bear as organizational change managers, why not literally draw a cross at the beginning of each day?’
That’s how I end up each day dividing a blank sheet of paper into 4 quadrants by drawing a cross in the middle. Same ritual – each day. In the quadrants I assign all of the to-do’s to a category (communication, learning, organization, performance). The next thing I do is adding a priority, i.e.:indicating what comes first. Have a look at the below example.
Like all lists and planning tricks there is absolutely no magic or rocket science involved. The only thing it does is providing a steady ritual to a sometimes paralyzing mountain of challenges. It’s a way of chopping the big mountain down into actionable pieces without being overwhelmed by panic.
Over the years I have even extended this practice to the anatomy of my other work, like planning and reporting. The below drawing gives an idea of how that goes.
Anyway – this is a very simple thing to do and if you are sometimes paralyzed by the complexity, messiness or volume of work that our profession represents, you should definitely try to bear the cross this way.
