You have a great idea for your business or the organisation that your work for or you want to carry out a change in your business or organisation by introducing a new product, a new process, a new piece of technology….etc. However, 70% of ideas fail.
Why do these great ideas fail?
They might fail for any number of reasons but some classic reasons include:
- lack of communication
- no clear goal
- lack of support / buy in
- over ambition
- lack of leadership
- unrealistic expectations
- lack / loss of momentum
- lack of budget
- and ultimately one of the biggest reasons is because of where these projects usually sit in priority.
Think of the Eisenhower Box. Most people spend their working day working on the things in the “urgent” boxes: Important/Urgent and Not-Important/Urgent. The type of projects that are being used to implement change will often sit in “not urgent” list and therefore not be high in the list of priorities or have people actively working on it. Not without some encouragement.
HOw to avoid being in the 70%: Harness collective wisdom
Simply put you need to harness the collective wisdom of your employees or customers. Why? Because you as an individual do not have all the answers (and the sooner you realise this the better). Asking others can help find solutions. Asking your employees / customers also has the added benefit of involving them in the process and as a consequence making them feel valued. Finally, there is also great power and experience in collective wisdom (think size of audience x indvidual years of experience).
What you definately do not want to do is create collective resistance. This can happen when (1) the leaders think they know it all and (2) when the audience feels that the leaders don’t value anyone but themselves. When people such as your employees and target audience are ignored your lose their discretionary effort.
Saying to your employees “I value your opinion” is a powerful thing.
By harnessing collective wisdom you:
- tell people you value them and their opinion
- win the hearts and minds of people
- gain commitment
- gain discretionary effort.
In practice how do you harness collective wisdom? Well you start with setting the goal. Where are you now? Where do you want to be? What do you want to find out? Once you have set the goal. You will then need to collect the collective wisdom from your employees or target audience. This might be getting everyone together in a room. It might be carrying out a survey or a 360 degrees survey.
The power/usefulness of the survey will be based on the questions asked.
- If you are carrying out an internal survey among your employees the survey should be anonymous and you should tell your employees this to encourage them to participate. However, you should ask for details of role, function and geography to help your analysis of the data.
- Each question that you ask in the survey should be linked directly to a goal. Know why you are asking a question.
- To ensure that you get useable data/ answers include “I am unable to answer” response with a box for comments. You should include statements/examples. You should segment your surveys. Averages are not paricularly useful.
- Include the ability to give feedback/comments.
Once you have a set of results you will need to analyse this for each goal and then act on the results.
Overcoming resistance
So you don’t want to fail. You don’t want to be in that 70% and you want to harness that collective wisdome. But how do you overcome the resistance to change?
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Have clear goals
Know and understand what the end game is (and share it with your employees/colleagues) Answer the questions Who, What, When, Where, Why and How.
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Identify what it is you need to change (and what not to change)
This is where harnesseing the collective wisdom of your employees or target audience helps the most. Involve the people who are involved and consult with them (or represenatatives). Do the research and properly identify what needs changed and what already works and what doesn’t need changed. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Remember: Changes can be small. It doesn’t have to be a big grand idea.
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Be clear about the time scales
Be clear about the when and how long. Decide and agree when the project is going to start, end and what happens in between. Remember: there is never a “good time” you simply have to be practical and pick a sensible time. Avoid big calendar events where your focus will clearly be elsewhere. If there is a lot of other stuff going on it might be mitigated by having a longer (or shorter) time scale. Be flexible.
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Budget.
Agree and set your budget. Remember: timings and budget will have an impact on each other. Be as detailed and transparent as you can be.
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Get senior level sponsorship
If you are not senior level yourself you will need the support of senior level management to overcome resistance to change. Identify the senior person in your organsation who is going to help you make the change. Visibly.
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Write a plan
Write a plan and work out how you are going to effect change. This is basically your planning and project management of the project as well as how you are going to communicate this to the organisation. The better your “how” and the better your communication of that how the easier it will be to overcome any resistance to the changes.
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The wider who
It is important to identify not just the who, but also the wider who. Those people in the organisation that will support and champion the change along side you (and for you). You need to maximise employee engagemment to get maximum buy-in.
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Measure success
Finally, identify what success means to you and how you are going to measure it. Do this at the outset of the project as part of your goals and then be transparent about how you are getting on during the project.