Understanding Workplace Change Impacts

The world of
workplace change

understanding and anticipating
the impacts of change

IFMA Silicon Valley
NetApp
Sunnyvale, CA
14 April, 2010
Clark Sept, Principal
Business Place Strategies, Inc. www.businessplacestrategies.com
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2
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Work is social
subjective norms

attraction /
perception
(choice / opportunity)
Individual
organizational
social
culture
identity
acknowledgement/
influence
(esteem / rewards)

emotional experience

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The workplace experience
Organization

Work Physical &
Process Tech Space

The
Employee

Support
Culture
Systems

Policies

●

Workplace change management
What is it? Goals:
• An organized process to • Decrease time required to
engage individuals and realize the benefits of the
groups that will be impacted workplace initiative
by up-coming changes to the • Increase overall level of
workplace adoption
• Interactive, responsive and • Encourage sense of
integrated program which ownership of the outcomes,
seeks to make transparent thus increasing satisfaction
the overall impacts of
workplace changes on
behavior

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The way from here
1. Work and the workplace experience
2. What is workplace change management?
• Behavior + consequences
• Biases
• Habits and making decisions
• Communication and change models
3. Simple principles for dealing with change
4. Planning for change
5. 5 things to keep in mind
6. Resources

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just because you can …

doesn’t mean you should

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Behavior and technology
“Forget Gum, …
Dinged heads, twisted
ankles and, most often,
bruised pride”
–New York Times, 1/17/09

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Behavior and healthcare
“Compliance rates on hand hygiene
among health care workers hover between
40% and 50% nationally, despite Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
guidelines and Joint Commission
requirements.
The CDC estimates the 1.7 million health
care-associated infections annually -- and
the 99,000 related deaths of hospital
patients -- are caused in part by poor
hand hygiene.”
- American Medical News, 11/30/09
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Behavior and energy
“We know that people are not passive
recipients of building design. They do run-
arounds or disable energy technologies that
are perceived as barriers to behavioral goals
and needs … disabling lighting controls, de-
lamping fixtures, or added fans and heaters to
increase their comfort.”

- Judith Heerwagen, PhD

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Just nostalgia?
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Biases

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Biases and point of view
Bias in corporate decision-making is partly a function of:
- Habit
- Training
- Executive selection
- Corporate culture
- Performance measures

Mostly, biases are a product of human nature – hard-wired and highly
resistant to feedback!

“Silo thinking” is a good example of organizational bias – i.e. decision-
making based on the insular needs of a particular group or department
rather than a broader strategic approach

Changing the angle of vision (point of view…) is helpful in neutralizing
potential biases

Bias versus instinct: what’s the difference? How do you know?
… stereotypes, www.businessplacestrategies.com
Business Place Strategies, Inc.
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identity, power-distance and individualism norms, etc.13

Biases and decision making
Organization

Org Physical & Tech Space

Physical
Work Support
Process & Tech
Space Systems

Policies

Culture Support
Systems Culture

Policies Work
Process

How are decisions made in your organization?
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Process decisions?
Making : Analysis
Decision-making around workplace change management is
of central importance to the success of any workplace
change initiative

Extent to which managers applied 17 practices in making
decisions?
• 8 had to do with quantity and detail of analysis relating to the
decision
• 9 described decision making process
Answer: process matters more than analysis … by a factor of six
Process can be very helpful in overcoming bias
Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibony
McKinsey Quarterly: The Case for Behavioral Strategy
McKinsey & Co. 2010

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Bias ?
Habit ?
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“The trick isn’t in the technology; it
Habits is in the changing of habits.”

Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister
(Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams)

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Habits, or why does it matter?
The 4 Stages of Competence
1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence External changes
challenge our sense
3. Conscious competence of confidence

4. Unconscious competence

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What makes habits habit-forming?
• 90% of our day = routine
• Habits can’t be un-learned
– (limbic system - a group of interconnected structures that
mediate emotions, learning and memory)

• New habits CAN replace old habits
– Conscious re-patterning needed to overcome “limbic lag”

• Getting out of the rut:
– Practice leads to … habits, “burned in” to the brain
(meaning: we no longer have to think about what we’re
doing)
– old habits aren’t changed quickly or easily, and are stronger
when we are tired or stressed
– more often successful when undertaken as a group
rather than individual effort

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Habits and the choices we make
• We make choices based on
our natural inclinations
• Impacts of choice:
– The environment / context
informs our choices
– Impacts personal choices have
on others
– Productivity–disruption trade-
offs
• Awareness and etiquette
• Individual choices and
community culture: working Example:
better together! Choosing which space:
- How many people?
- Activity?
- Duration?

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Choosing the right habits
• What do I / we want?
… bad habits to “plow under”
… good habits to keep
… new habits to cultivate
• How?
… prepare
… act (involves thinking)
… practice – i.e. keep going

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Who’s your audience?

1. Leader

2. Manager

3. Staff

4. Admin

5. Project Manager

6. Others (HR, IT, Finance, vendors …)?

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Workplace change models
• Roll-out • Visionary
• Facelift • Community
• Workstyle Development
• New ways of
working

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Simple principles
1. Engage people, don’t “tell” them

2. No two organizations are alike

According to a recent survey conducted by McKinsey &

Company, up to 2/3 of change initiatives fail because of
management’s insistence on cookie-cutter approaches to
change management that emphasize “efficiency” over
effectiveness

3. Address change openly, honestly and consistently

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Planning for change
1. Understand how people use / abuse
resources today (keep / “plow
under”)
2. Understand life and work styles,
and how behaviors and culture
influence resource use
3. Rethink and change how resources
are used (cultivating new habits)
4. Strategize how to reach individuals
and groups that will be impacted to
help them make the transition

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Five things to keep in mind
1. What’s the nature of the change?
Simple? Complex?
2. What level of investment can and should you commit to?
Financial and political capital: most change is political
3. What are the soft spots that can be used for leverage, and
the hard spots that need careful and on-going attention?
Trade-offs are important
4. Who should participate at what level and how?
No engagement: No change
5. How much time do you have, and is it enough?
The more complex, the more time is needed

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Resources
McKinsey Quarterly Current Reading List:
• The Case for Behavioral Strategy, • Leadership and Self-Deception, The
Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibony, Arbinger Institute, 2002
2010 • Distracted, Maggie Jackson, 2008
How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer, 2009
• The Inconvenient Truth about •
Change Management, Scott Keller • Switch: How to Change Things When
Change is Hard, Chip and Dan Heath,
and Carolyn Aiken, 2009
2010
• The Public Participation Handbook,
New Ways of Working Network James Creighton, 2005
NewWOW.net is a membership • Managing Transitions, William Bridges,
2003
organization of organizational
The Heart of Change, John Kotter and
innovators who take an integrated •
Dan Cohen, 2002
approach to workplace change.
• Leading with Cultural Intelligence, David
www.newwow.net Livermore, 2010
• Cultures and Organizations, Hofstede
and Hofstede, 2005

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BPS White Papers

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How we got here
1. Work and the workplace experience
2. What is workplace change management?
• Behavior + consequences
• Biases
• Habits and making decisions
• Communication and change models
3. Simple principles for dealing with change
4. Planning for change
5. 5 things to keep in mind
6. Resources

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BPS representative clients
Cisco:
since 1997, work includes change
management to drive broad organizational
buy-in to next generation work environment
GSA:
MOBIS contract holder since 2005. Work
includes workplace strategy, research, tool
development (incl. change management) and
training. Agency work includes DISA, BPD, US
Courts, Forest Service
HP: “As a direct result of the workshop BPS
Pragmatic change management program put on for us, we’ve completely changed
developed to align leadership, management the way we think about our real estate.”
and staff in major real estate consolidation
McKinsey & Company: Parke Boneysteele
COO, West Coast Operations, McKinsey & Company
Real estate and workplace advisory services
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…any questions?
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Understanding Workplace Change Impacts

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