It is better to incur a mild rebuke...
than perform an onerous task.
Every technology leader professes to be a change agent these days. They know without being one they won’t get a seat at the top table or be able to position technology strategically within their business. It’s old news though and enlightened leaders have run on a platform of change for years. However, still many change programs fall flat on their face and in the process discredit the technology function and everything it is striving to be.
Its hard to distill something as complex as organizational change into a simple formula for success, but one of the guiding principles I often still see neglected is “Pain or Gain”. That is: unless the change you are proposing removes significant pain or gives significant gain, it is unlikely to get off the ground. Humans are after all pragmatic animals and generally follow the path of least resistance. They are loathe to invest time or energy in anything that does not remove pain or enable them to gain.
So what does this mean for technology leaders? Think about how you position change and what it means in real terms for those that it impacts. Unless incentives are aligned with objectives, as some New Yorkers might say “fugheddaboutit”!
An example: You propose new processes for managing IT investment that creates a greater level of upfront analysis, more “checkpoints” to be approved and a higher level of business engagement. In this instance you might well get resistance from those used to allocating investment dollars with a less controlled approach, or business leaders used to allowing IT to manage investment without much of their involvement. Selling it on the benefit of an improved process that makes it easier for you to monitor, track and prioritize investment is not necessarily a benefit to those who are not measured directly on these metrics. What do they care if it makes your life easier? Chances are it is an unwanted distraction and more work for them.
However there is way to sell this:
- The Pain: You often find you don’t get what you need from IT and solutions that are delivered don’t address your most critical business issues and often cause a lot of additional processes that have little value add. This new approach will greatly reduce the likely hood and therefore “pain” of this currently, too common scenario.
- The Gain: we will validate investment more thoroughly and use technology to help solve your most critical business issues. You may spend more time now but you will spend far less time over the lifecycle because we have done a lot of the heavy lifting upfront and the gain from the output will be much greater business benefit.
I am simplifying this but I still meet leaders who get animated about the beauty of processes they tried to bring in and the grand change program they had planned.. and then express frustration that the business “wasn’t ready” or “didn’t want to invest the time”. The CIO who is a change agent won’t use that explanation. They will understand that the key to selling change is to understand the benefit to the audience and know how to position it in language they understand. I recall a quote from a facetious but apposite character called Henry Sugar who appears in a Roald Dahl book: “It is better to incur a mild rebuke than perform an onerous task”. Very true! People will avoid the onerous task like the swine flu; but in business the stick rarely works so make sure the carrot is clearly labeled pain and gain.
May 22, 2009 10:28 AM | Permalink
