Stories of Successful Change

Practical advice for pension change management

At Fuse, we practice the W5H model to deliver impactful change management for pensions. I recently sat down with my partner Genevieve Groat, our resident change aficionado, to discuss lessons learned from our work.

Our conversation (edited for brevity and overlapping enthusiasms) went like this:

JS: (only slightly skeptically) Ok, Genevieve, anyone who knows you probably knows you love change management. But why?

GG: (with a giant grin) I genuinely care about people; I’m empathetic and sense people’s emotions, so I find I naturally connect to how people experience change. I also remember being on the front lines, trying to muddle my way through new tools and processes that weren’t introduced properly and it felt terrible! I don’t want people to feel that way.

Plus, change management involves so many great dimensions: research, using quantitative and qualitative methods to understand what stakeholders think and need, the creativity of developing effective tactics and collateral, the risk management of balancing the right investment for the right outcomes, and the leadership opportunity and responsibility of guiding individuals through change.

JS: Speaking of leadership, many leaders are change management skeptics and I understand that perspective. As I wrote last time, there are so many seemingly generic frameworks and individual feelings, it can be hard to understand the approach and measure the outcomes of this discipline. Let’s get right to it, can you share examples of tangible change management impact?

GG: Absolutely. For starters, let me emphasize that change management is not ‘just communications,’ it’s not fluffy or intangible. Done well, change management – the planning and activity that allows you to support individuals from current to future state – is a data-driven approach to ensuring that new tools and processes are used as they were designed, rather than inconsistently or not at all. Change management identifies capability and capacity gaps early in a transformation, and guides where an organization should invest with tactics that are targeted to specific stakeholder needs.

And, as you know, I’ve got lots of favourite stories about successful change management interactions…in one case, a change management program identified a group of critical SME stakeholders who were feeling powerless as their beloved green screen software application was being upgraded and, by implication, their specialist knowledge would no longer be required. The change team staged an elaborate funeral ceremony for the old application that included smashing a green screen monitor with a sledgehammer! It was extreme, but the feeling of control and catharsis that came from swinging that hammer really helped that team express and overcome their fears. This event was a turning point in how the team engaged in the program.

In another example, a pension administration solution upgrade program identified through assessment that some of their employer stakeholder group was insufficiently prepared for the launch of the new tool; at the same time, the tool was set to launch with known deficiencies that would impact employers until resolved. These kinds of trade-offs happen! We designed a ‘day in the life’ campaign for employers to walk them through the new experience, highlighting where the limitations existed – for example, “login and get a coffee, this is going to take a minute!” Our research also showed that employers respected a specific community of influencers, so we engaged a leading one to participate in a video with us to explain that go-live was just one step in the process. These targeted interventions helped build credibility with employers and their confidence in the change journey, making the launch experience much more successful than it was projected to be.

JS: Those are great stories of overcoming stakeholder resistance and managing risk with effective change management. Where does resistance to change typically come from, in your experience? And what can leaders do when change gets stuck?

GG: Great question. My first thought is, there’s two main types of resistance: the vocal, visible resistance of stakeholders challenging or expressing doubt about the change, and the quiet resistance of stakeholders who are disengaged and stop participating. Either way, resistance is a signal to dig deeper! It may be easy to think that people are just being stubborn or lazy, but unless you’re willing to fire everyone and start again, people have to come along with the change – and resistors usually have legitimate concerns. Do the work to understand and address where resistance is coming from: Are people making assumptions? Do they have enough information? Are they confident in the future state?

In my experience, subject matter experts often have the most difficult time with change, because it can be perceived to threaten their status as the superpower go-to person. But I’ve also experienced that most people want to change, IF they have clarity of direction and support along the way, and IF they believe the change is worth it!

In one program, where there was a significant amount of resistance, we lead a Fear Factor-themed event with mixed teams of champions and resistors – who our research had informed us were very food motivated! Teams won candy dirt and bugs for identifying and discussing their fears about the change. This exercise provided input for the change team on where to focus their efforts to overcome resistance, but it also allowed peers of different perspectives to discuss concerns in an open way and build comradery through competitive teamwork.

JS: It sounds like curiosity is a key ingredient in successful change management! Is that one way you’d explain the iteration in our framework? How should leaders think about the interdependencies between and repetition of the change impact, monitoring and action steps?

GG: You’re right, it pays to be curious, and patient and persistent. Change management is a process and progressive impact is the goal. In our W5H approach, we carefully baseline where stakeholders are in terms of change readiness through interviews and surveys. The objective is to improve on that baseline over the life of the change journey. It’s impossible to know everything about a project on day one – some ambiguity is inevitable and the transformation program will likely evolve as it is implemented. Iteration through assessing change impacts, monitoring change, and taking action to support stakeholders is about helping stakeholders through the increasing levels of clarity as they emerge. Identify a change, assess what it means and for whom, and design and deliver support to move people from A to B – and do it again and again as a program or project progresses.

And you will learn something new in every iterative conversation about people’s tools, processes, dependencies and even individual mechanisms for coping through change. In one technology program we supported, early change impact assessments focused on process specifics, but as the solution was further defined and the extent of end-state automation became clear, the focus shifted to specific roles like automation engineer starting to worry about their jobs. The relevant issues for change management will evolve through the process, and iteration through the impact-monitor-action steps helps to stay on top of that!

JS: It sounds like the effort could be enormous, which can be really challenging to fund and focus on for resource constrained pensions. How should leaders know when and how much to invest in change management?

GG: Change management shouldn’t be a money pit! Start by thoroughly understanding your stakeholders through research like focus groups and readiness assessments and then invest based on information. Not all change efforts require the same level of support.

JS: That’s a helpful reframe from the advice you generally hear about, just start early, don’t wait for change management.

GG: You should ideally consider change management from day one, but you should also target your efforts where they’re going to make the most difference based on data and information you’ve gathered about the specific change. Change management can and should be strategic and responsive, given that we don’t have unlimited resources.

Change teams shouldn’t feel like they have to address everything at once; in one successful change program, our client identified the key risk area was the core program team and focused their efforts on this group, identifying and addressing change issues for them before expanding their work to incorporate additional stakeholders.

And change teams also shouldn’t feel like they have to do everything themselves. I find it’s incredibly helpful for an organization to know it’s own stakeholders well, but there are options for getting help with change actions from third-parties or other areas of the organization that can increase capacity and impact.

JS: Speaking of other areas of the organization, change management often gets confused with training. How is it different?

GG: They’re both important disciplines and can work together, but they’re definitely not the same thing! Change management is about preparing, equipping, and supporting individuals from a current to future state. In the context of change, training is one of the disciplines we can engage for change outcomes, just like communications or workforce planning. Change management is a broader listening function while training is specifically designed to communicate out skills and knowledge. Trying to use the training function to do change management tends to skip a step and can limit the range of tools available to identify and address problems.

JS: Thanks for sharing your expertise, experience and passion for this topic Genevieve! Last question for now, what advice would you have for pension leaders on how to get started with change management?

GG: Get curious! The first step is understanding where your people are at and developing a tailored, responsive change program. Ask them how they learn, and how they want to be engaged. Then, think about all your change stakeholders like customers, and segment them! We often plot stakeholders on an influence and readiness two-by-two and develop custom paths to dealing with different groups. Finally, don’t be afraid to be creative! You can model change for your stakeholders by doing things differently than the typical email updates and PowerPoint presentations – and I promise the results will surprise you.

JS: I believe you! And I welcome anyone else who does to get in touch at hi@fusestrategy.co. There’s nothing we’d like more than to bring positive change to change management for pensions!