Use a change’s purpose to design its strategy

Hey Reader,

Have you ever been on the receiving end of an organizational change announcement and wondered, how the hell did they decide on this? Or, why are they talking about Y when the problem we have is clearly X? Or, where on earth did this decision even come from?

Stakeholders often feel this way when the strategy for a change isn’t aligned with the true purpose of the change.

Imagine if you wanted more space in your living room, so you bought a mansion…when you could have simply gotten a smaller coffee table.

If you were hungry, so you made lasagna from scratch…instead of a sandwich.

I could go on, but you probably get the point: People often make decisions and take actions that seem disjointed from the outcomes they were hoping to achieve – but why?

Ego, fear, ignorance, status quo bias; many things stand in the way of leaders designing change strategies rooted in a change’s purpose. And even when they think they’re making purpose-led decisions, sometimes they’re not honest with others or themselves about what the real purpose of a change actually is (did you want more space in your living room, or did you want to break up with your boyfriend?). But the real purpose is what should dictate the strategy, and what does drive successful organizational change.

Not only does the real purpose provide a single source of truth for decision-making, but it makes things make sense to stakeholders, so that as a leader navigates their teams through change, it’s easier to reduce barriers to adoption of new behaviors and ownership over the future state

A few weeks ago, I walked through an example of what happens when leaders design a change strategy based on a purpose or why that is not the real one.

In the example, a leadership team of an organization recognized a key frustration they had in common: their middle managers could not give them coherent updates about how employees on their teams were spending their time.

They didn’t know why projects were behind, deadlines were shifted, and milestones were missed. Yet the teams were busy and were even asking for more headcount!

One leader said that they should start to use project management software to track their employees’ work, so that’s what they decided to do. But they didn’t want to tell employees that they wanted to track their productivity, so they told them something else.

A couple of missteps later, and an expensive software rollout unraveled, and definitely didn’t achieve its intended outcome.

So what would I have done in this situation?

All year, I’ve spoken about designing change strategies rooted in a change’s purpose. So if middle managers couldn’t give the leadership team coherent updates about how employees were spending their time, should they have tackled their middle manager problem and gotten the managers coaching or management training to strengthen their skills? No.

I just said how essential it is to be honest about what the real purpose of a change actually is. So should the leadership team have just told employees that they wanted to track their work because they weren’t getting it done? Not exactly.

When there are strong emotions involved, it’s usually a good indicator that you haven’t actually defined your problem well

Don’t solve for frustration. Solve for the root of that frustration.

This example (based IRL) isn’t actually about how employees spend their time or how managers report on it – it’s about the leaders

If I was working with these leaders, before they made a single move, I would want them to begin channeling curiosity, compassion, and clarity.

When they recognized a key frustration they had in common – their middle managers could not give them coherent updates about how employees on their teams were spending their time – I would have had some follow-up questions:

Which middle managers?
What could be standing in the way of managers sharing coherent updates?
What does coherent mean?
What kind of updates are you looking for?
What projects, deadlines, and milestones have been missed or behind?
When you say you want to know how employees are spending their time, what insights and outcomes do you expect from that data?
What's frustrating about this for you?

After uncovering some answered to these questions, my next step would most likely be to facilitate an honest conversation with managers. The leaders could say, Here are some things we have noticed; let’s dig in together.

The conversation might confirm that some or all of the managers don’t have the skillset necessary to report meaningfully on their teams’ challenges and progress. Most likely, it would reveal something else entirely.

When leaders are able to define a well-put problem to solve, then they will be able to determine why a change is necessary – what the change’s purpose is – and the strategy will fall into place

The real purpose provides a single source of truth. When you have to make a choice between this or that, the one that is aligned with the purpose is the one that will keep you on track toward your desired outcome.

When an opportunity arises, the purpose will help you say yes, maybe later, or no, and be more confident in your decision.

The real purpose helps you brainstorm creative ideas and solutions – rather than restricting you to one topic, it's a root that provides the freedom to think big.

And the real purpose makes things make sense to stakeholders, so that as a leader navigates their teams through change, it’s easier to reduce barriers to adoption of new behaviors and ownership over the future state.

Let’s go back to our example

After we answer some questions, maybe we find that:

There is a key stage in the lifecycle of a project at the company where projects consistently fall behind. Maybe there is an individual or team or process tied to that stage. When something is done to fix that stage that will make sense.
OR, there is a department with very inexperienced managers who were all promoted for being high-performing individual contributors, and who would also benefit from coaching. Resourcing that will make sense.
OR, the company has a culture of micro-management left over from their startup days, and now leaders have to shift to delegating, but have to build those skills and that culture. Admitting that and designing a strategy to fix that will make sense.
OR, they just went through a period of growth and have to reassess how teams are resourced, as folks are doing twice as much work with an outdated budget or team size. Understanding that, acknowledging that, and creating an action plan to rectify that will make sense.
OR, there are some employees who are indeed dropping the ball, and that has to be addressed. If that is true, addressing it will make sense.

BUT WHO KNOWS? You can’t possibly, until you get curious, care about lowering barriers and addressing challenges more than pushing your ideas through, and make and communicate decisions that make sense.

When you’re designing a change strategy, do you want employees to wonder, how the hell did they decide on this? Or, why are they talking about Y when the problem we have is clearly X? Or, where on earth did this decision even come from?

Stakeholders feel that way when the strategy for a change isn’t aligned with the true purpose of the change.

When you define the problem, you can articulate the purpose – when you stay true to the purpose and let that guide your decision-making, choices not only become easier to make, but they make sense to stakeholders, which means there is less resistance and swifter adoption

Even if people don’t “like” the change?

Yup, even if people don’t like the change.

(That's a topic that I get asked about more than almost any other, so you know it's one I'm going to talk about soon. A big reason for building organizational change readiness is so that your employees will be ready for any change – from the good to the not-so-good to the downright crappy.)

Before we dig into that, though, I'm going to unpack the concepts of curiosity, compassion, and clarity. At the end of March, I'm speaking at the Elevating Employee Communications: Shaping the Future of the Modern Employee Experience Conference about those three topics, and I want to share the tools and insights I'm sharing with those leaders here as well.

Talk soon,

Caitlin Harper
Founder, Commcoterie

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