Dain Johnson founded and directs
Rev 0 Consulting, a technical leadership consultancy devoted to “making brilliant people
great leaders”. He is an engineer-turned-psychologist, having worked as a mechanical engineer in the energy industry for a
decade before completing a master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology. As a certified Project Management
Professional (PMI®) and Change Management Practitioner (Prosci®), Dain is well-qualified to discuss current best practices in
change management. In this episode of
Expert Insight Series, Dain
and Jon explore data’s power to aid organizational change and create a culture of change by disseminating data to all levels of
your organization.
Watch the full interview, listen to the
podcast
, or read the highlights below.
4 Change Management Takeaways:
Change management saves time and helps mid-market companies manage the “people side of change”.
How to use data analytics to support distributed decision-making.
How to align behavioral change metrics to organizational key results.
Change Management is no longer a competitive advantage; it is simply a business requirement.
Change Management – The Gift of Time
“Get comfortable talking about people risk.” – Dain Johnson
Change management brings efficiency to middle market companies as an effective tool to
manage the people side of change. When done well, it mitigates risk and helps to prevent common project pitfalls
including lack of adoption and poor results. Prosci®, the leading change management research consultancy, has surveyed global
leaders for over 20 years, and they find that organizations using change management are six times more likely to achieve project
objectives, five times more likely to stay on or ahead of schedule, and two times more likely to stay on budget (Prosci, 2022).
Is Change Management necessary for every project?
No. Leaders should identify the criticality, size, scope, required behavioral change, and risk levels of their
project; the project’s consequence level determines the proactive use of change management. For a minor change project (i.e.,
exchanging a pump), complexity is low and does not require behavioral change. By contrast, complexity is high for a merger of
two Fortune 500 companies which involves meshing organizational cultures and systems.
Should I use data in change management?
Yes, and not just quantitative data.
Data-driven organizations
go beyond collecting quantitative data from their employees, diving into qualitative analytics as well. Measuring,
interpreting, and converting qualitative metrics such as “rate of change adoption” into useful decisions takes careful
planning and criteria (Futcher, 2020). Paul Gibbons, author of The Science of Successful Organizational Change, writes
“Businesspeople need to understand the psychology of risk more than the mathematics of risk” (Gibbons, 2019).
Is change management a subset of project management?
No. Outcomes are more likely to improve with a 3-legged-stool approach. Senior leaders sponsor the change,
project managers bring budgeting, time, and stakeholder management, and change managers oversee behavioral adoption.
“It’s 3-legged stool… If you can align the project management efforts with the change managers who are thinking about the
people side of change and the senior leaders within the business who are sponsoring the change… if all three of those are
working in concert, that’s really the holy grail. Change management does not exist on its own and it can’t. It has to be
integrated with the business.”
– Dain Johnson
Army General Stanley McChrystal and Creating a Culture of Change
When organizations regularly adapt to change, employees normalize to that dynamic environment. This paves the way for adoption
of future changes, innovation, and creativity. Following the change management process fosters this shift. Leaders should
remember that change management is just a tool, and culture is a collection of behavioral norms. Used in a culture of
control and fear, change management serves little purpose, but used in a
culture of autonomy and ownership
,
change management takes organizations to the next level.
“Team of Teams” – An example of distributed decision-making
Army General Stanley McChrystal illustrates this premise in his book Team of Teams (McChrystal, 2015). When he took
command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in 2004 Iraq, he quickly realized that the military’s traditional culture of
centralized control would not conquer Al Qaeda’s decentralized network. Field decision speed lagged. Unconventionally, General
McChrystal used data analytics and communication to flatten the organizational structure,
sharing information directly
with all task force levels to empower faster field decisions. This lesson of distributed decision making through shared data
relates to leaders today and tools like automated
dashboards
with a daily email digest simplify this mission.
“Distributed decision making makes sure that the right people have the right info at the right time to make the right
decisions. That is why I love dashboards and data analytics which get that information into the right hands.”
– Dain Johnson
The Role of Data Feedback in Change Management
Consider Unintended Consequences
Data-driven change management requires
metrics
to measure individual and organizational behavioral change. However, without care, leaders may inadvertently create metrics
that reward individual employees but are a detriment to the organization. This pitfall is seen in professional sports and
business teams.
“What you draw peoples’ attention to is where their effort goes.” – Dain Johnson
Choosing the Right Metrics based on OKRs
Consequently, Dain recommends leaders select individual and team behavioral metrics that advance business objectives and key
results (OKRs). He adds, “Only measure what you’re going to act on.” Deloitte echoes this best practice, writing,
“The new frontier in change management is using data and behavioral science – a paradigm shift from ‘attitudinal’ approaches to
behavioral ones” (Deloitte, 2022).
For that reason, first determine the main objective of your organizational change. From there, you can define the key results
that tell you whether you’ve achieved the objective. People want to know the role they’re playing, what they are working for,
and the rules of the game, so
aligning individual, team, and organizational OKRs drives effectiveness
.
How to Get Started with Change Management
“The competitive advantage these days is change. How quickly can you change? How quickly can you adapt to changes around you?
Because we don’t exist in closed systems.”
– Dain Johnson
Adapting to Change is a Business Requirement
Today’s dynamic, volatile, and
almost frenetic business environment
mandates that organizations adapt or die. Where change used to be a competitive advantage, it is now essential for a healthy
revenue stream. The question has shifted from, “Should we change?” to, “How fast can we change?”
Resources for Change
You do not have to lead change management alone. Many business consultancies offer change management services, and finding a
specialist is wise for large projects such as mergers, restructuring, or strategic growth. In house, leaders might want to
send managers through the Prosci® change management certification program. Smaller businesses might consider tools such as the
Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS, 2022) or books such as Team of Teams (McChrystal, 2015) and No Ego
(Wakeman, 2017).
Contact Rev 0 Consulting
Looking to continue the conversation with Dain? Find him on
LinkedIn
or through his consulting firm,
Rev 0 Consulting.
Blue Margin helps
private equity
and mid-market companies quickly convert data into automated dashboards, the most efficient way to create company-wide
accountability to the growth plan. We call it The Dashboard Effect, the title of
our book
and
podcast.
If you would like to explore how Blue Margin’s team can help automate your data feedback to create a culture of change, contact
us below.
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