So, You Want to Make a “Change”

By Frank L. Frievalt

The pursuit of successful change has been consistently present at every rank and in every organization during my career. Although the specific topics regarding change are seemingly unlimited, successful changes do share some common strategies. Yet, even with the right strategy, two necessary ingredients for success are required: discretionary time and genuine conversation. This article is about the strategy and necessary ingredients to cause successful change.

(I recommend that you read Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change [Bridges, 1991].This playbook for change is consistent with my personal experiences and has influenced my thinking about successful change, which includes some of this article’s major points.)

 

Every Change Begins with Someone Losing Something

Of all the concepts on change, this one is the least appreciated and contributes most to failure. If you are the “change agent,” it is likely you have focused on the thing or things gained in the change far more than anyone else has. Yet, changing means departing from the present, and that departure is a loss of something to someone—always. Whether the loss is “good” or “bad” (in your opinion) is not the primary point here; the focus is about you giving intentional consideration to who loses what. If you fail to do this, responses to your attempt at change will range from passive reluctance to zealous sabotage, and it will come as an unwelcome surprise. The following example is an administrative change, but I could easily insert similar experiences with extrication tools, hoseloads, apparatus, medical protocols, and so on. The specific change is secondary to the process of change.

For example, many years ago, WordPerfect® (WP) was the gold standard for word processing programs. An entire generation of administrative professionals and office staff cut their digital teeth on it and entered a new age. Other software programs increasingly emerged such as databases, spreadsheets, and presentation programs. WordPerfect documents could benefit from all those programs, but it became “clunky.” Enter MS Word® and the Microsoft Office Suite®.  All programs were seamless, and there was only one user license. For the information technology (IT) folks, this was a no-brainer; they decided to “change” their organizational computer platforms from WP and a cobbled collection of programs/licenses to MS Office; no one asked the WP users about this.

Years later, after investigating some quality problems from an otherwise high-quality office staff, I discovered that there were very old (and bootleg) copies of WP residing on a number of the office staff’s computers—and not just in our department either. The staff had been converting documents for years between MS Word and WP. We only discovered this when the version incompatibilities finally became insurmountable. We could not have bootleg software on the computers and had to gingerly request/require a leisurely migration to MS Word. Getting “fragged” through a power-stapler by staff felt like a distinct possibility for several months, and I could not blame them. Our IT folks had made a “good” change from their point of view (efficient, cost effective, and so on), but never considered the loss of familiarity, productivity, and expert power lost by our administrative staff. Before implementing your change, anticipate who loses what, and go to them first.

Many changes do not allow you the time and space needed to do what I am proposing here, but there are more opportunities available to you on which you may seize. Doing it “right” when you can builds trust. There are exceptional situations that demand the prompt use of raw power for the greater good. When these situations occur, they draw on previous trust, which is limited. Therefore, when you can, work the process. Explain the change, the benefits you perceive that change will create (and for whom), and why you are coming to them beforehand. State what you see them losing and, genuinely, ask them to share how they feel about this change. Simply seeking them out in this manner shows respect, and that earns respect.

I have found that there are three common responses during this exchange, which follow:

  • “Their” most significant loss is not the primary one I anticipated.
  • Their loss is minimized through the giving of respect.
  • Their loss will indeed be a point of contention, but at least we are both aware of it (and sabotage will neither be a surprise nor anonymous).

If you take nothing else away from this article, know that, in the end, it has always been worth my time and effort to manage change in this way.

It is not just about the immediate change either; this may be the first example of intentional change-management others have ever seen. You are establishing what “doing it right” looks like in practice. I have been pleasantly surprised to find a colleague or labor president come to me before they implement a change where I was perceived as the “someone losing something.”

 

Do Not Expect People to Initially Share Your Enthusiasm

Unless you employ a “Tourette’s” style of change management (highly discouraged), you will have thought more about your change than anyone else. You will have envisioned—and come to desire—the benefits of the change. Essentially, you will have already sold it to yourself. So, equipped with the confidence of deep thought and passion to contribute to the betterment of humanity, you share your gift of change with the troops. (Yes, changing the department patch/letterhead/paint scheme/workout time/word processor will rise to Crusade-level status for some.)

Don’t take it personal when all you hear are crickets chirping to fill the silence. Give people time to process what you are suggesting; they have not yet taken the mental journey that brought you here. Crickets chirping are better than a spontaneous mob lynching; it means they are thinking, trying to figure out what this means to them. It is a necessary first step. William Bridges makes an important distinction between changes, which are external (e.g., the IT department changing to MS Office), and transitions, which are internal (e.g., administrative staff willingly letting go of WP). Bridges’ general message is that changes are easy to impose in organizations by way of authority, but it is the internal transition of acceptance by individuals in the organization that that will determine success or failure. He suggests a process of transition that starts with an end of the previous situation, progresses to an “Neutral Zone” where the proposed change percolates in the minds of those involved and ends with an internalized transition to a new beginning.

The neutral zone, as we will see, is a place of anxiety and uncertainty. People have lost what they had, but have not yet reaped the benefits of the change to come. In short, give the concept of the change time to percolate, or anticipate a mutiny. If your change is a net improvement, people will eventually recognize that and support it (the operative words being “if” and “eventually”). Once our staff realized how easily they could interface spreadsheets, databases, and presentations with work they had already accomplished in MS Word, they supported the change by way of internalized transition.

 

Have a Simple Message, and Repeat it Often

A mutiny is, at its core, a loss of organizational discipline secondary to a loss of faith in leadership to deliver it through a crisis. Mutiny usually occurs immediately before or during a perceived crisis. The nature of organizational crisis is that threats begin to outrun strengths; time and space for decision-making shrink. A great fire service example of mutiny can be found in Winning the Fire Service Leadership Game (Caulfield & Benzia, 1985). This discusses the crisis that lead to the brief Fire Department of New York strike (a form of mutiny) in 1973. Only our leadership and the faith of others in our leadership will maintain their narrow and focused discipline, which is required for success for the tasks at hand. The sequence can be seen in the following:

  • You started this mission/voyage/march to [insert the change here],
  • conditions have deteriorated, and no one can remember why you thought this was a good idea to begin with, and
  • abort and return to what you knew and/or had.

The successful leader (i.e., change agent) in this situation can articulate the value of the mission (i.e., change) in a clear, convincing, and understandable way amid the crisis to maintain discipline and complete the mission. You must help them “see” and convincingly internalize the benefits before those benefits are actually available; you have to sell it. Changes do not frequently devolve into a true crisis of mutiny, but if they do, it is likely to occur in the neutral zone. This is where you must have a simple message about the benefits of the change; repeat it frequently, give people reasons to have faith in your leadership, and give them time and space to percolate and to internalize a personal transition of buy-in.

 

Three Rounds of Input

Even if you have the foresight to go out and seek input, become resolved and comfortable with the necessity of doing this at least three times. The first round of requesting input to a possible change gets about the same attention as “…in the unlikely event of an over water landing…” during a preflight briefing from Reno to Phoenix. Sure, it could happen, but your change really is unlikely to occur in their minds. If your change makes it to a place of likely implementation, people become nervous because it starts looking a lot like an “over water landing”; they did not really pay much attention to whatever it was you were saying then.

This round of input from the employees is more about stopping forward progress of the change than giving constructive input. There is genuine surprise and anxiety that it got this far. When denial and disinterest are no longer options, you get your final and probably best input on a proposed change. In this sense, changes are similar to the first three steps in resolving personnel problems. Investigate, investigate, investigate; you never get all the facts (inputs) the first two times.

 

Genuine Conversation and Discretionary Time

So, you want to make a change? If so, I’ve established that you should do the following:

  • Figure out who loses what and go to those people first.
  • Don’t expect people to share your enthusiasm…at least not initially.
  • Have a simple message you repeat often.
  • Be prepared to gather input at least three times.

This can be accomplished provided you have two precursor ingredients: genuine conversation and discretionary time. Without either, you cannot apply the strategies associated with successful change and transition. At the beginning of the article, I suggested these ingredients are becoming scarce. Face-to-face conversations are being replaced by social media conversations. Talking is being replaced by texting, and leadership presence is being replaced by Web presence. These technologies are not a bad thing in and of themselves; we all derive great benefits from the digital age. Yet, I hope you can reapply a valuable fireground lesson learned soon after the arrival of the handheld radio. Incident commanders realize that radios provide more communication, which was not always the same thing as better communication. We learned that many of the important decisions required a face-to-face meeting at the battalion chief’s car rather than a “mobile-me to mobile-you” transmission; it is no different for important changes. The confidence and clarity of a firm handshake, direct eye contact, and genuine conversation trumps the ubiquitous “e-blast” every time.

Technology was supposed to make us more efficient and increase our amount of discretionary time. How is that working out for you? My “extra-time per techno-gadget” ratio is going backward. Take two hours per day in your planner of choice. These two hours give discretionary time for the unscheduled but very important conversations, which usually begin with, “Hey chief, you gotta minute?”

I discovered by accident that if I stayed a little late, my line members would approach me in the office with trash bag and dust rag in hand under the guise of evening housework. Once I figured that out, I altered my work schedule accordingly. Many potential problems were discovered and resolved during this “housework.” You can’t schedule teachable moments, and you can’t schedule other people’s readiness to approach you.

Success is when preparation meets opportunity. Prepare yourself for success, by allowing for the discretionary time you’ll need for the conversations and relationships that will build faith in your ability to lead people through change.

Photo found on Wikimedia Commons courtesy of Michael Krewson.

 

REFERENCES

Bridges, W. Managing transitions: making the most of change. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. (1991).

Caulfield, H. J., and Benzia, D. Winning the fire service leadership game. New York: Fire Engineering. (1985).

 

Frank L. Frievalt is the assistant fire chief for the Mammoth Lakes (CA) Fire Protection District. He has 35 years in city, county, state, and federal fire services from the ranks of firefighter to assistant chief. He has a bachelor’s degree in fire administration, a master’s degree in fire and emergency management, and is currently working on a Ph.D. in political science.

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