Skate where the Organizational Change Puck will be

September 11, 2011 - Luc Galoppin

Using the ice hockey metaphor to point out where organizational change practitioners should be today, and the direction the puck will be heading tomorrow.

My change management radar for 2011/2012 is focused on the upgrade of the change management portfolio. This upgrade is fueled by the increasing adoption of social media. Looking at the digital economy and how it has changed our daily lives and the business we work in, I am very reluctant to accept that our domain of expertise – Organizational Change Management – would not have changed an inch.

Some of the discussions I have with organizational change practitioners are timeless and time-consuming; i.e.: still discussing and re-iterating concepts of almost 40 years ago (and older). The economy has changed dramatically ever since, but the vantage points are still the same.  My suggestion is to look for where our skills will be needed today and tomorrow.

I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

Wayne Gretsky

Multiple Intelligences

Turns out that the digital economy not only changed the way we do business but also the way we interact, think and collaborate. Think of it as a new literacy. In our narrow view of the world literacy involves only text, but there is also image and screen literacy. The new literacy, triggered by the internet, is one of information navigation. Information Navigation is a new layer of literacy that adds itself to our multiple intelligence (that is: the literacy of image, speech, text, moving image).

But there is more. Since the last few years the rise of social networks has topped our multiple intelligence with an additional form of literacy. Collaboration intelligence is exactly the skill that is catered for by social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The Anatomy of an Organizational Change

The organizational change management approach caters for 4 different elements. They are: Communication, Learning, Organization and Performance. Each element represents a specific need that people have during a change.

skater

  • Communication: people need an identity to hang onto 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.

What the Puck of Organizational Change looks like

Now here is the thing: when social media are changing the laws of gravity for business, there is no way  organizational change practitioners can stand aside and pretend that their methods and tools should not be reviewed. What’s more: social media are specifically affecting the core of our business. In other words: the anatomy remains the same, but the focus needs a radical change.

In my opinion, this is how social media is requiring the focus of each of the change management work-streams to shift: players remain the same, but the game is being played on a different level. Therefore it requires a different puck.

The puck of OCM

On the left-hand side of the drawing above, you can see what change management execution was about before the digital economy got any traction:

  • Communication: broadcast your messages to stakeholders (‘Message & Audience’)
  • Learning: manage the curriculum (‘Content & Collection’)
  • Organization: top-down (‘Hierarchy & Position’)
  • Performance: push harder (‘Control & Compliance’)

However, as we are witnessing the end of the Industrial Revolution, we discover that leadership and workplace dynamics are no longer hierarchical. That game is over. Compliance is no longer the shortest path to productivity. When the world changes, the rules change. And if you insist on playing today’s games by yesterday’s rules, you’re stuck. The truth is that relationships are no longer hierarchical, they have become tribal. This means that the new puck of Organizational Change looks like this:

  • Communication: listen and trust the process (‘Story & Community’)
  • Learning: learning is in the network (‘Context & Connection’)
  • Organization: become a platform for change (‘Social Architecture & Roles’)
  • Performance: balance push and pull (‘Trust & Co-creation’)

Now that we know about the anatomy of the players and the old versus the new puck of organizational change; let’s zoom in on what the playing field looks like.

Outside: Where the Puck is Right Now

In a world where information is no longer scarce, productivity is about connecting customers and employees in a different way. Like it or not, the internet has shifted the ownership of your brand to your customers. Customers own your brand by advocating or disliking it. Here is the thing: when consumers own your brand, productivity depends on your ability to include customers into the story of your product.

Customer Relationship Management has never been about customers, neither relationships. It has been about systems and about ‘management’ in the narrow sense; i.e.: making sure that customers fit into and behave according to a certain script.

The next thing you know is that social networks are becoming immensely popular and all of a sudden companies want to be present and popular on that level as well. But it’s a Trojan horse, because customers now have the means to hack the call-center scripts and to ‘gate-jump’ to a different game-level: The facebook-pages and all other means of ‘presence’ of an organization are embedded with a dialogue function by default. As a result, there is no way to be present on social media and at the same time not listen to your customers.

The Trojan Horse

On a side note: some of you may remember the video of Michael Hammer where he announced that ERP platforms like SAP were the Trojan horse for bringing down silos on the inside of an organization. It all starts with the implementation of an innocent software, and the next thing you know is that your processes are re-engineered from end-to-end and the company is working in a completely different way.

In the same way as ERP implementations are the Trojan Horse for business process re-engineering, to the same extent social networks are the Trojan horse for bringing down silos between marketing, communication and customer service. Customers are slapping companies in the face(book) publicly and what started out as a marketing campaign becomes a nightmare for customer service.

Ice hockey field

Only those companies who are prepared to bring down the walls between customer care, marketing and communications will thrive. This is where we – as organizational change practitioners should be today. That’s right: not in the ivory tower of HR/OD, but in the trenches with the call center agents trying to figure out what works in relationship building with customers.

Inside: Where the Puck is Going to be

Now let’s have a look at the next step: to “skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” (still quoting Wayne here). The same logic applies to internal projects: ownership demands for inclusion of employees into the creative process. These employees in turn will also have upgraded their literacy in the mean time.

Therefore, it is my contention that this same movement will be visible in a few months INSIDE companies. There are already some Trojan horses appearing here and there. Internal social networks such as Yammer and Rypple are spreading like a (healthy) virus. This is where the puck is going to be. The question is: where are you skating?

PS: Tip of the hat to Gail Severini for triggering this article.

  • Dave Roitman

    Luc – you present a provocative and inspiring vision in your post on “skating where the puck will be.” Yet I’m seeing my clients still making the journey to the new reality you describe. Maybe the Googles of the world are already largely there, but many companies and the people “in” them aren’t yet. One example: Your statement that “the truth is that relationships are no longer hierarchical, they have become tribal.” This thought: relationships have always been tribal, and perhaps into the foreseeable future we will continue strong vestiges of the hierarchies we’ve had since somewhat before the Roman legions. The art is to know when and how which set of rules is appropriate for which interactions. Just last Friday I witnessed a client’s decision-making team relying on hierarchy power when it should have been relying on knowledge power.  Yet hierarchy power still has its place. You also juxtapose trust and co-creation with control and compliance. Yet control and compliance also still has its place, e.g. when dealing with stringent regulations.  While maintaining compliance capability, we can still , at the same time we increase our use of trust and co-creation to, in your words, “balance push and pull” in performance. So: in addition to skating to where the puck will be, we need to help our clients play two games at once shifting nimbly from one to the other. Maybe the hockey metaphor is the rapid shifts between defense and offense.  In sum our change management work in 2012 will continue to increase emphasis on “social architecture and roles;” yet we’ll continue to help clients deal with the “current” puck e.g. hierarchy & position, and control & compliance – certainly no longer as dominant as they were, yet still on the ice. But this is just adding some color commentary to your accurate description of the game.

  • Hi Dave,
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
    I am in alignment with the fact that customers will need to play two games at tha samee time / defense and offense.
    This is why – in a previous post – I have referred to that new puck as an UPGRADE and NOT a replacement.
    Here is the link to that post: http://www.reply-mc.com/2011/08/05/what-it-comes-down-to-for-ocps/

    Best regards,
    Luc.

  • Hi Luc – Interesting article.  Love the pictures you drew.  Reinforces your message about the different types of literacy – text, image, speech, and screen literacy.  I am drawing upon multiple of them as I process (aka read) your article.  It truly is more than simply reading.  I interpret your diagrams, apply a reference and filter to the article, juggle other activities (and articles) which influence how I percieve what you are posted.  I also interpret based on my understanding of your metaphors – both hockey and the Trojan horse.

    For me, it was less about the change in the pucks and more about that you need to deal with BOTH.  Unlike in hockey, both of these pucks are often in play at the same time, in the same organizations.  Various individuals in the organization are focusing on and “playing with” the different pucks.  Some highly skilled individuals might be playing with both simultaneously.  I think skilled change practitioners need to know how to play with both – how they move across the ice differently.

    Whether social media is the new Trojan horse or not…I think time will only show that.  Regardless, I fully agree that companies need to be prepared to bring down the walls between customer care, marketing and communications.  To do so requires changes in both trust and the organizational culture.

    As with all good articles (or rather my view of good articles) you’ve given me something to think about.  Thanks.  Suspect my own follow-on blog will appear at some point.  🙂

  • Hi Dave – Read your response after writing my own.  I think that we are leaning towards the same thoughts – I described it as having both pucks in play at once. 

    I’m not convinced it will ever truly move to just the puck on the right.  Most organizations will always have some level of the left in play.  I think you are spot on regarding helping clients deal with the “current” puck and it still being there.

    To me, at this point it is less of an either or and more of an and.  I think that the heart of the issue that Luc is getting at is that many don’t recognize that a second Puck has hit the ice!  They are only focusing on the first one.

  • Thanks Faith – please keep in mind that the number one reason why I am writing these articles is out of a need to make sense of it all. So in a sense these articles are observations of a satellite flying into unknown territory.
    Looking forward to your own blogs.
    Luc

  • Luc – Rather than thinking of you as flying into unknown territory, I think of you as the brave test Pilot, out there seeing how the equipment operates, testing it out, helping make improvements and enhancements.  Cheers

  • Luc, excellent post, thanks for writing it! My background is digital (social, mobile, web) as part of integrated marketing & communications. I’m relatively new to change management (studying post grad). I’m lucky enough to be working at the intersection of these fields, as part of the Digital Strategy & Transformation team within IBM Corporate. I find this area fascinating – and your analysis of how digital/social is transforming organizations incl. your ‘new puck of Organisational Change’ rings very true to me.

    I grouped your ‘new puck’ sections into two sets of two below and added my perspectives / observations:

    COMMUNICATION: listen and trust the process (‘Story & Community’)
    PERFORMANCE: balance push and pull (‘Trust & Co-creation’)

    Internally and externally, I see a decrease in one-way ‘crafted’ communications designed to be ‘pushed’ to broad
    channels/audiences – and increasing focus on listening and engaging in two way, (online and offline) social dialogue with niche networks/constituencies (or Tribes, to use Seth Godin’s term). I recently wrote a blog post on this titled ‘Building Constituency’, but I think the key points here are:
    a. being able to define key constituencies, listen to and deeply understand the shared interests, ambitions, beliefs of each, as well as understanding their digital/social media usage habits, who the influencers are etc then
    b. engaging with each constituency – contributing highly relevant content or experiences via the right tools/tactics/media, at the right time, in a way that provides high value to them, on their terms – while also linking back to the uniform consistencies across all (for external the consistencies might include corporate strategy, products/ services/ offerings and high level targets. For internal change management, the consistencies might include the change vision and high level intended outcomes).

    The process of co-creation with constituencies is likely to go a long way to building trust.
    Value can also be added by curating information (providing context/sensemaking).

    LEARNING: learning is in the network (‘Context & Connection’)
    ORGANIZATION: become a platform for change (‘Social Architecture & Roles’)

    I like the way you expressed ‘Organization: become a platform for change’ – a powerful idea. I see roles and role definitions tying in with new skills for learning. New roles will emerge (for example we created cross functional Digital Leader role in each country), but existing roles will need to update skills (skills related to communication, performance – and leadership, including driving increased integration between silos). In terms of learning networks, I see a lot of self organising networks springing up which facilitate open, peer to peer learning and collaboration. I created a global Digital Community of Practice which acts as a platform for cross-functional, self-identified members to present their best practices, learnings and accelerate learning through participation. To relate back to your point on communication and community – the most active of these communications networks are those formed based on a shared community passion/interest (as opposed to networks created by leaders with hierachical authority, to serve the needs of their silo or function managment system). Web 2.0 has made many forms of power more ubiquitous, especially information power.

    Re. relationships, Luc, I generally agree that we’ll see movement away from hierachical power, but I also agree with Dave Roitman’s comment below that there will still be a time and a place for most leadership styles. I’d argue the future favors leaders with genuine expertise, credability, integrity, imagination and the ability to build constituency – to consult and collaborate effectively – as well as the flexibility and mastery to use the right leadership styles and skills at the appropriate time.

    I see one other significant change taking place as a result of the external technology and communications revolution we’re experiencing – and the internal transformation organizations must go
    through to keep pace: that is a shift towards continous measurement and optimisation cycles. This relates to ‘failing fast’, A/B testing, agile methods etc. Digital metrics allow us to measure and test virtually in real time. For example, if we have sufficient web page traffic, it is possible to test multiple messages in a day to determine which is most effective. The longer we allow between testing cycles, the less optimised our efforts will be. To leverage this opportunity, a lot of business processes must change. 

    Very keen to hear others thoughts / observations – and Luc, I look forward to continuing to learn from your posts!

  • Hi Rowan,

    Thanks for your comments. Building further on your last remark regarding the internal transformation, I think this is where the heart of our profession must be: how can we make organizations better equiped for an environment that is constantly in flux.

    It’s never the same river twice – but then again, hasen’t it always been that way? These are exciting times for organizational change practitioners!

    Luc

    PS: please share the link to your article that you mentioned above.

  • Hi Luc, exciting times indeed! The post I mentioned in my comment is: http://rowan.typepad.com/watts_up/2011/10/building-constituency-a-communications-approach-for-open-leaders.html

    V keen to hear your thoughts / feedback on this approach.

    I agree your question “how can we make organizations better equiped for an environment that is constantly in flux” must be at the heart of change. Some thoughts on this, in the context of progress, collaboration and co-creation are in my latest post (titled ‘Agile Progress’). Would love any comments / feedback on this too.

    I’m relatively new to change, so I don’t know what I don’t know yet!

    Rowan

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