David Long

Show Notes

• How much more change leaders experience today compared to the previous generation
• Why change is challenging for leaders
• How a leader can understand the problems associated with change
• What the first step is when introducing change
• The importance of aligning change with the values of the culture
• What it means to shrink the change
• How to sustain change
• The importance of effective communication during the change process

Transcript

David Long

The first step in any change initiative is you have to communicate the why for change. You have to tell people why change is necessary.

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From William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. This is Leadership & Business, produced by the William & Mary School of Business and its MBA program. Offered in four formats: the full-time, the part-time, the online, and executive MBA. For more information, visit wm.edu.

Ken White

Welcome to Leadership & Business, the podcast that brings you the latest and best thinking from today's business leaders from across the world. Sharing strategies, information, and insight that help you become a more effective leader, communicator, and professional. I'm your host, Ken White. Thanks for listening. If there's one constant in business, it's change. Well, thanks to globalization, competition, AI, and other factors, change comes at us continuously. While adapting to change is a challenge for many, change management is a critically important component of leadership. If not done correctly, employees, teammates, and customers will refuse to buy in. David Long is a professor of management at the William & Mary School of Business. He teaches change management to students, working professionals, and leaders. He says in order to effectively introduce and manage change and make it stick. Leaders should become familiar with the change management models that have proven to be effective. He joins us today to share an overview of the models and to discuss the strategy and tactics behind successful change management. Here's our conversation with Professor David Long.

Ken White

Well, David, thanks very much for joining us on the podcast. Great to see you.

David Long

Thanks, Ken. Nice to see you as well.

Ken White

We're talking about change. I think when I talk to colleagues and people literally all over the country, I think we all think we're experiencing more change than the generation before us. Is that true?

David Long

It's easy to say yes to something like that. I think that there's probably more drivers of change today than there would have been in the past. Just with technology, with social media, with how we connect with others, I think change is. We're more prone to see it and feel it, but change has always been omnipresent. We are constantly evolving and changing. What we do, who we are, who we operate with, the type of person we are. We're just always going through transformations. Sometimes, they're subtle; you don't even notice them, but other times, they can be off the scale.

Ken White

Are we reluctant to change? I think we are, are we?

David Long

Humans have a tendency to like to control, and change evokes some unpredictability. We just lose a little bit of control when we're going through change. We have tendencies to fall back into habits, to want to be able to control our environments, to be able to predict our world. We are definitely reluctant and resistant to change. That's why change is such an important topic for leaders, because you naturally are going to encounter resistance whenever you're trying to lead change. It's just there.

Ken White

You may have answered my next question: why is it so challenging for leaders?

David Long

That's it because, again, the stakeholders that you're trying to change, and change always involves people. Change is a lot easier if you're just trying to change the paint color in your house. You encounter less resistance than when you're trying to change the way a team operates or the culture of the organization. The people are the greatest resistance because they're so reluctant, because of the uncertainty, because they don't quite understand what's on the other side of change. And so, as a leader, understanding some of those hot buttons and pain points is crucial because you can get out in front of them and really come up with a good strategy for change if you understand all those potential problems that are going to be out there.

Ken White

And a good way to learn those problems. Yeah. Is what?

David Long

Well, the great thing about change, I think the easy answer to that is just you need to experience, and there's a learning curve, which is true, but there's also some real systematic tools that we can use. We've got some pretty good frameworks and scientific models that leaders can apply and follow. It really helps, almost like a checklist, a process model that you can follow, where you can understand what do I need to do at a certain stage of the change process. Because that's exactly what it is as a process. That process is universal, whether you're trying to change something really big, i.e., the culture of the organization, or something small, like, hey, I'm going to reshuffle where people sit in the building.

Ken White

Can we walk through one of those?

David Long

Yeah, absolutely. There are some leading models out there. As I was gearing up for this podcast, I was thinking about is there a way to distill them. I think I've boiled them down to some practical steps that you can think about for a process. The first step in any change initiative is you have to communicate the why for change. You have to tell people why change is necessary. I like to call that the oh, crap moment it because the way to approach that is to create some change is vital; change is crucial. We need to change because it's going to result in something either beneficial or avoid something detrimental. Really, you need to set the stage with what would be called a sense of urgency. People need to know, oh, yeah, I see that we need to change. That's the first step. It's just to get going.

Ken White

That's how you get the buy-in, right? If it resonates with me, I'm on board.

David Long

Absolutely. Prior to me being in academics, I worked for Home Depot. I had a department supervisor in lumbar building materials, that end of the building, bricks, and sticks, we used to call it. He had the messiest department. I always come down to him and say, and his name was Parnell. He wouldn't mind me sharing the story. I would always say, Parnell, you got to clean this up. Look, we're losing sales. I'd show them the data. Nothing ever happened. Well, one time, I came down, and I said, hey, I hate to tell you this because your department is in disarray, our sales are down, and you're going to lose headcount. Because without transactions, you don't get staffing. That's how, in retail, you get staffing through transactions. As soon as he realized he was going to lose one of his team members, that was the sense of urgency. It wasn't the, you're failing. It wasn't the, this looks like this looks like crap. It wasn't the sales are down. It was the, I'm going to take somebody away from your department. That was the catalyst. You got to have an oh crap moment to get people swimming in the right direction.

Ken White

There's the why, and there's I'm on board. Wow.

David Long

Once you do that, then you got to paint a vision for people. People need to understand. I got it. I need to change. Show me where I'm going. You really need to paint a picture of what change looks like. In that instance for Parnell, it was, hey, let's go take a look at another store where they're doing it right down in lumbar building materials. Let's just walk it. Let's look how retail is. Let's look how clean it is. Let's look how crisp it is. Let's look at the signage. Let's look at the customer service. Just seeing. It's like I could tell you we can go to the beach, or I can show you a picture of you sitting on the beach. That latter one is going to be much more compelling. That vision of I see the end state, and I'm motivated by that, is crucial.

Ken White

So the vision, is that step two or part of step one?

David Long

That's really step two. You got to create the urgency, and then you got to go to step two of the vision. Once you do that, what we have found the most effective way to drive change is don't force it. Actually, find ways to align change with the people you're trying to change. Align it with their values. So it's like getting your kid to clean their room. You can tell them, I'm your parent; you have to do this, and they probably do it, but they don't want to. But if you can figure out a way to make it so that it aligns with who they are, maybe they enjoy having friends over and showing off their room, or they like being able to find things, and whatever it is that's their values if you can align it with them. There was this famous ad campaign in Texas. I don't know if you remember the Don't Mess with Texas campaign. That actually was an anti-littering campaign. In the '80s, Texas had a littering problem, and they found out that the people who were littering were your babas. They were your late-teen, early-20s, pickup-trive, tough guys. And all of the, we're going to fine you. You're breaking the law. None of that had, in fact, that actually fueled their anti-authority persona. But what really worked was a Don't Mess with Texas ad campaign, where you had George Strait, Nolan Ryan, and real Texans out there promoting that campaign. And so littering then became, oh, you're messing with Texas. You don't mess with us. And so that was a really effective way. Again, align with their values as what I would call step three.

Ken White

Critical, though, for the leader to do a lot of homework up front.

David Long

Change has to be customized. You're right, because you have different stakeholders. You're going to have to find exactly what does create the sense of urgency. Change is very customized. Yeah, I think homework is the right metaphor to use for leaders.

Ken White

We'll continue our discussion with David Long in just a minute. Our podcast is brought to you by the William & Mary School of Business. When it comes to choosing an MBA program, many people look to the rankings, among other things. Well, the William & Mary MBA program is ranked among the best in the world. The Financial Times includes William & Mary's full-time MBA program in its global top 100. Fortune ranks the executive MBA in its top 20, and US News and World Report lists the online MBA program in its top 20. If you're thinking about pursuing an MBA, check out all the indicators of quality, like a world-class faculty, unparalleled student support, and a brand that's highly respected, the William & Mary MBA. Reach out to our admissions team to learn which of our four MBA programs best fits you: the full-time, the part-time, the online, and the executive MBA. Check out the MBA program at William & Mary at wm.edu. Now, back to our conversation with David Long.

Ken White

We know of countless examples of a new leader coming in thinking they have the answer. It's just going to fail miserably because they didn't do the homework.

David Long

Exactly. Or, hey, here's what I did in my prior organization, and I'm going to repeat that because it was effective. That's probably not going to be the right approach for your new context. Every situation is different. Leaders would be wise to really do their homework. Sometimes, it just takes time to figure out. Now that I understand the problem, I know how to attack it.

Ken White

Yeah, and just talking to people.

David Long

Absolutely.

Ken White

Communicate the why first, then show the vision, or show me why, and then not force it, align it with values is third. What's up next?

David Long

Four is, you got to find a way to shrink the change that you're trying to drive. The reason you want to shrink the change is because allow people to work on something at a smaller scale to get some early wins. And so for Parnell, hey, you have 38 bays in lumbar building materials. You've got to clean all these bays up. Just pick one bay. Hey, I'll tell you what, Parnell, let's start with just this end cap. Get that right, and then let it grow from there. Because if you start small, Parnell gets that one end-cap right. You can celebrate the win. Man, you did a great. Look at this. This is beautiful. This is exactly what the vision is. This is right. This is what we saw in the other store. Now that he's got that model, he can grow it. He can scale it from there. You got to find a way to shrink the change. Again, I want to communicate the reason that's shrinking the change is because it allows you to get some early wins. You can really find some ways to get some traction in the change.

Ken White

It's like home improvement, right? You do this one little project, and if it goes well, you're not going to stop.

David Long

That's right.

Ken White

You're just going to keep going.

David Long

That's right. That's a great example, Ken, because if you give somebody just for five minutes, go for a run, or, hey, guys, why don't we just try it for a day? Let them sample it in a way that's not too intimidating or not too overwhelming. Then, once they see that, oh, yeah, this is kind of working, you then can let it grow from there. If you start off by saying, hey, fix all 28 of these bays, you probably aren't going to get there.

Ken White

Just too overwhelming for everybody, actually. And then the fifth step after a shrink the change?

David Long

So, the fifth step is you got to find a way to make it stick. You got to find a way to what we call sustaining change. And this is probably the step that's most overlooked because you're so excited about the process or the small win, and you have this big celebration parade. Well, you got to remember there's a tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. And so you got to find a way to sustain the change. In change management, we call those hooks. You got to set some hooks that help keep the change. Because what's going to happen is the leader typically is going to move on to something else, and that new change can't be completely attached to the leader. It has to be in the bloodstream. It has to be part of the culture. So you need to find ways to make it sustained. So, ways to do that are you set in performance incentives so that change is attached to performance. That's one way to do it. Or you create the context around it that prevents change from creeping back to its prior state. We call that shaping the path, which is another one of these frameworks that I've been talking about in distilling. For Parnell, one of the ways that I was able to sustain change there is I turned Parnell into a merchandise trainer. Whenever we hire somebody new, I would say, hey, go see Parnell. He'll teach you how to merchandise. He didn't have a choice but to keep his bays neat because he knew he was going to have to show somebody how to do it.

Ken White

But it's interesting how if it's not a great idea and it does become a leader-only change, oh, man, it just doesn't fly.

David Long

That's exactly right. You got to make sure that, for instance, the vision that you create is not only compelling as a vision but the end product also is compelling as well.

Ken White

What's the role of communication throughout this for the leader?

David Long

A couple of things. The obvious answer is transparency and trust. As a change agent, you're only going to be as effective as people trust you. But also, it's really important that you understand the differences in the stakeholders that are part of the change process if you create a classic strategic process as a stakeholder map. And place stakeholders. So, if I think about, okay, I'm going to change the management department here in the business school, but I might want to consider the dean or the department chair in marketing. Those are people that, although they're not directly involved? They're pretty influential people. And so I want to keep them abreast of the change or ask their opinion about what they would do if they were in my shoes. Again, don't overlook certain stakeholders. And so really understanding who's who in zoo is important for a change agent. So communication, I would say, first and foremost is trust and transparency. Second off is strategically understanding who the stakeholders are.

Ken White

A lot of selling involved?

David Long

Yeah. And so you think about some of the classic influence and persuasion strategies. And I think that those are going to be important at different times. But credibility probably is the key, is making sure that the people who you are trying to change see you as somebody who is credible in that domain. Because if you're trying to move them through a change process and they don't believe you have the cache to do it, that's going to be probably something that backfires on you. Making sure that you've established that credibility. The second thing is making sure that they believe that they're going to have the resources on the other side of this. Change agents who say, hey, let's go do this, but I'm not willing to invest in it. You don't want to grow that skepticism. People need to understand that there's going to be resources.

Ken White

By what you said if any time you work for a leader who gets it, wow, life is good.

David Long

Life is good. Yeah, that's right.

Ken White

Everything. Conversations on down. What about the frequency of change? Let's say a new leader comes in, does have some success with a fairly major change. Is there a period of time they should wait, or how do they consider the next great thing.

David Long

Yeah. So, you got to be cognizant of change fatigue. People are; that's a real thing. And so, you do need to be aware of change fatigue. I think the time, more than the frequency, is understanding the impact that change has in the short term versus the long term. And so, we have this model that we follow called the J-curve. And basically, it's shaped like a J, and it shows that when you come in, and you initiate change, there typically is a negative short-term effect. As there's turmoil and transition and people are learning new processes. And like Parnell had to, in order to clean the bays, he had to tear them all down and get them all cleaned out, which in the short term hurt the impact, the positive impact. But then, over time, it tends to go back up. And so downstream, you see the positive effects. And that trough, that bottom of that J, is a real vital element that a leader needs to be aware of because he's got to constantly remind the team, This is where we're supposed to be. We're trying to get to the other side. Let's not quit. Let's not give up hope. And so that becomes a real strategic focus for a leader is to understand in the short term, we may have some detrimental effects. But on the back side of this, this is where we're all going to reap benefits.

Ken White

When the wins start coming in, how important is celebrating those?

David Long

Yeah, that's huge to be able to celebrate those wins. That needs to be done in a couple of ways. Change happens through emotions. Oftentimes, people think that, hey, if I give people enough data, we're all rational, and they'll see the importance of change. Change actually happens through emotions. When people feel, that's when change really happens or sticks. And so celebrating those wins needs to be both, hey, look at what we've done. That's the rational side, but also somehow to celebrate those wins so that people are happy, they're satisfied, they feel like their contribution is paying off. And that's going to be the joyous emotional side of change. Those are the wins that carry us forward.

Ken White

That's our conversation with David Long, and that's it for this episode of Leadership & Business. Our podcast is brought to you by the William & Mary School of Business, home of the MBA program, in four formats: the full-time, the part-time, the online, and the executive MBA. Check out the William & Mary MBA program at wm.edu. Thanks to our guest, David Long, and thanks to you for joining us. I'm Ken White, wishing you a safe, happy, and productive week ahead.

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