Don’t Get Caught Off-Side by Change

For many years I’ve specialised in being a change agent – somebody who takes on the tough job of managing a Finance team in transition. As a veteran manager of more than 20 years I’ve learnt that it doesn’t matter whether it’s a performance issue, a merger, a relocation, a start-up or a good old-fashioned shake up & modernise, you need the team to come with you on the journey; and the key to that is communication.

In my spare time I coach a kids football team. I gain a great deal of pleasure from helping the children develop their game as well as their social skills through growing together as a team – and it’s easy to draw a number of parallels between youth football and managing a team through change.

In both cases, it is impossible to over communicate.

Communicate the Goal

With any change it’s imperative that not just the reason for the change is clear and understood by all stakeholders - especially those impacted by the change – because everybody needs to understand the vision you’re working towards, but what is key to improving the overall acceptance of the change is to explain and sell the route that needs to be followed to realise that vision – i.e., share the plan.

In youth football, you can’t just park a group of 9 year olds in front of a highlight reel of Barcelona in their pomp and expect them to play the same way. You need to put the building blocks in place over time to establish the core skills and tactical knowledge required to travel along the stepping stones towards the vision. Realistic timelines and targets are essential – and should be clearly communicated and assistance available every step of the way.

Have a Transparent and Robust Plan

We hear top tier football coaches speaking of their style of play or their “ideology”, which amounts to little more than their way of working and the end vision for how the team operates, i.e. plays the game.

This is no different for a manager taking a team through a change initiative. Outline the plan of how the intended change will be implemented including the impact on individuals – good and bad. Keep the dialogue going with updates on progress, how changes may or may not affect individuals, re-calibrate where the plan is going off track and re-set but make sure you communicate throughout. Provide reassurance where you can – but make sure you always listen to feedback. This will feed the success of the change project whilst failure to do so will lead to danger.

As with youth football, repetition of the message and the method is critical – you cannot over communicate in this regard. The job of a change manager is to communicate, provide counsel and re-calibrate to ensure the project remains on course.

You Need a Little Patience

It’s critical when teaching kids – as it is when dealing with staff going through a change project - to apply patience. Everybody works at their own natural pace, and we all handle change differently, often travelling through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) but at a very different pace to one another. Work with the outliers that need help and reassurance, encourage those who are moving quickly through the process, and address quickly the dissenters and disrupters.

Celebrate success

After all of the hard work, dedication and turmoil it’s vital to celebrate success.

We all work so hard, and so fast that you’ve moved onto the next challenge before you know it. It’s good to take a breath and celebrate the things that have gone well. There’s always time for the post implementation review and learn the lessons – so there must also be time to celebrate the achievement of coming out the other end of a successful project. Footballers, after all, are world class at celebrating goals – so why not the rest of us ?

About Green Drum Consultancy

Green Drum provides the beat to which successful Finance departments perform to. We specialise in helping SME’s to modernise their Finance function to drive value at both ends of the Income Statement.

With nearly 20 years in senior finance management Steve Hill, Director – Finance Transformation, is well positioned to help your organisation modernise its ways of working, business partnering, systems, process and controls.

Services Green Drum offers include:

• Review of processes and internal controls

• Commercial financial modelling

• Business partnering and reporting

• Financial planning and analysis

• Change coaching

• Project management

• Systems review and implementation

Examples of previous successful assignments include business process re-engineering and managing change initiatives such as acquisitions, company integration, office relocation, private equity takeover, function and service outsourcing, team building, tech start up – all positively impacting turnover, cost reduction and productivity.

Industries include: Technology, Software, Business Services, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Local Government, Media.

www.greendrum.net