MANAGING MOTIVATION IN THE TIMES OF CHANGE.
Dr. Madhukar Shukla
If one look back at the unfolding of the Indian business terrain during the 90’s, one would realize how remarkably our business vocabulary has changed. These years saw a new set of terms and phrases - e.g., downsizing, BPR, ERP, delayering, M&A, rightsizing, globalisation, takeovers, etc. - gaining a popular currency in the business-speak. Not only did these terms chronicle a radical shift in the business concerns of the liberalised economy, they also highlighted the need for organisations to master a new competency, viz. how to manage change.
Most companies have also worked-out the mechanics of managing change. They have learned now, for example, how to lay-down the new reporting structure, how to fix severance pay, how to negotiate with unions/ JV partner, what new systems would be required for implementing new strategies, etc. In spite of such efforts, however, the proportion of failed change-efforts (i.e., where change did not yield the expected benefit) still remains on the higher side.
Often the reasons for such failures lies in the company’s inability to translate and view any change effort in its human terms. Companies often overemphasize the management of the tangible, visible aspects of change (the strategies, systems, structures, etc.), while neglecting the importance of attending to the "invisible" drivers, which determine the success of any change effort. It is, in fact, only logical that any change program will have its impact on the essentially human (i.e., social, psychological, and emotional) experiences of its employees.
Organisational change very subtly, but irrevocably, alters the way people relate with each other, their aspirations and desires, what they feel about the company and their work, how they spend their time, how and with whom they communicate, and so on. If one fails to manage these experiences, they often become a major motivational block to the success of the change program.
An examination of successful change efforts, in India and abroad, shows that managing employee motivation during change efforts is a three-fold process:
1. Alignment of Individual and Organisational Change Aspiration,
2. Attending to Resistance to Change,
and
3. Creating Synergy for Sustaining Benefits of Change Program.
Let us consider the options an organisation can exercise in managing each of these stages:
Alignment of Individual and Organisational Change Aspiration
Perhaps the greatest managerial challenge in making a change program successful is to make people feel enthused about the change. It is impossible to get employees’ commitment, unless they see the goals of the change program as something they can personally feel about. It is also important to appreciate that commitment and enthusiasm are essentially emotional states; and emotions can not be whipped up from the conventional communication exercises used by many organisations, which merely address the head and not the heart.
Successful corporate transformations mostly use two broad strategies to generate a passion for change.
Firstly, they provide a compelling vision for change. People feel inspired to act, and are even willing to accept adversities, if they find they are working for a greater cause. A vision with which people can relate to, often stimulate such commitment. In the ‘80s, for instance, Motorola’s vision to "beat the Japanese in quality" inspired its employees to achieve the six-sigma goal.
Building an inspiring vision, however, is easier said than done. It demands imagination and innovative insight from the top management. It also requires a cultural sensitivity about what would "turn on" the people in the organisation. Unfortunately, in a number of organisations, the current emphasis on "vision statement" focuses more on how respectable the "statement" looks, than on how stimulating the company’s "vision" is for its employees.
Secondly, these companies create dissonance by encouraging questioning of status quo. To mobilise energy for change, and to create ownership for change goals, it is essential that employees perceive the difference between the "actual" and the "ideal". This is possible if management not only highlights the deficiencies in company’s performance, but also encourages active organisation-wide debate on it. Often benchmarking data, customer feedback, consultant’s reports, feedback surveys, etc., act as useful tools to provoke employees to start questioning the present ways of functioning, and to look for alternatives. For instance, in 1980s, when Samsung initiated the process of transforming itself from a parochial inward-looking behemoth to a nimble-footed global giant, its CEO ensured that all senior executives visit departmental stores and try to buy their own products. The executives soon found that their company’s products were considered bad even
by the salespersons. This realisation, along with the feedback from the market, initiated a companywide soul-searching exercise for self-renewal.
Attending to Resistance to Change.
Any organisational change, however beneficial for the employees, is invariably marked by a sense of uncertainty and alienation. Even when organisations take care of the tangible concerns related to job security, change in status, pay or perks, etc., the deeper identity-related issues often remain unattended. People anchor their identity around the relationships which they have built with their work, its culture and people. People resist because when organisations change, these relationships also undergo a dramatic change.
There are a number of ways in which organisations can help people overcome these psycho-emotional blocks and rebuild a new identity around the changed organisational reality. One of the most effective approach is to encourage involvement and participation from employees in the change process. When people participate (through task-forces, project teams, meetings, etc.) in the process of diagnosing and discovering the solutions for problems related to change, it not only increases their commitment for change, but - more significantly - it also helps them to surface and work-through their own dilemmas about the implications of change.
Organisations can also reduce resistance by developing mechanisms which expand employees’ contacts with external world. Interactions with and feedback from outsiders (e.g., one’s customers, suppliers or employees from other companies) not only forces people to reflect on their own ways of functioning, but it also often provides them with alternative ways of understanding the change process.
Many organisations, for example, send their executives to conferences and training seminars, or invite their customers or outside experts to share their experiences. Such interactions are quite useful in helping the employees to re-examine their own mental models, and to develop new anchors for their identity.
But perhaps the most essential requirement for overcoming resistance is the need to develop a comprehensive communication strategy. During times of change, the experience of ambiguity is a natural, though uncomfortable, human fallout. Often the ambiguity is a greater source of resistance than the change itself, because not only people find it psychologically threatening, but also because it encourages misinformation about change effort to flow freely.
Availability of accurate and reliable information, therefore, has an important role in managing the organisational change. A consciously planned and systematic effort at informing and regularly updating people about changes occurring in the organisation helps much in reducing ambiguity, and facilitates a more rational understanding of the change process.
Creating Synergy for Sustaining Benefits of Change Program.
What follows after the successful implementation of a change program is as much - if not more - important as the change process itself. Once the roll-out of the change program is over, it is necessary to recreate the experience of stability and certainty for people so that they feel motivated to adapt to changed ways of working. Moreover, even a successful organisational change leaves many a psychological scars, and conscious and planned efforts are required to heal them.
There are many ways in which organisations can , and some do, manage this critical requirement for successful change. One of the most important task at this phase of organisational change is to develop systems for feedback on incremental success. Major corporate transformations don’t happen overnight; they occur in small incremental steps - in pilot runs, in single departments and units, or in small segments. Highlighting these "success stories" motivates others to emulate, and feel comfortable with, the outcomes of change.
To sustain the motivation towards institutionalisation of change, it is also important to reward/ reinforce the desired behaviour. This may seem obvious, but surprisingly many organisations fail to develop new and appropriate performance management systems which support the aims of change efforts. It is remarkable how often organisational systems continue to encourage old patterns of behaviour which counter the aims of their change program. For example, many organisations continue to reward people for their individual achievements, even after the new business process-based system requires them to work as teams. Similarly, many companies, even after having implemented a more customer-oriented system, continue to reward sales offices which overshoot sales targets, in spite of maximum customer complaints from those regions.
Lastly, it is important to recognise and heal the scars of "post-change trauma" of successful change. Even the most smooth instances of organisational change leave many residual unresolved feelings and issues. In the short term, these are not apparent, but over a period of time they often become the major impediments in sustainability of change. It is important for organisations to develop formal (e.g., counseling cells and team-building exercise) and informal practices (e.g., office parties) which strengthen social bondings and act as a support system for healing these scars.
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