Jan Hills explains why HR must be constantly ready to respond to change
Change is a permanent reality for most companies, and HR is usually tasked with helping the change to happen. HR may play a number of different roles in change – from leading it or being an agent of change, through to being a part of a change programme in their own function.
Change has a number of elements all of which need to be in place for it to work. The first is relevance; understanding why the change is important and facilitating people to understand what the change means to them personally. The second is readiness; determining what needs to be done to make the change happen and what might help or get in the way. The third is robustness; having a clear plan and process for moving from the present state to the desired state. The final part of the jigsaw is responsiveness; getting people on board with the change.
In the work we do with companies we find that responsiveness is the area most often neglected. For the responsiveness stage most HR people will have a stakeholder map and a plan of who is important to get on board, how much effort that will take and the steps to shift their thinking. This usually includes analysing the proportion of people who are for the change, those resistors and the ones in between. However some new research recently published in the Harvard Business Review suggests a stakeholder plan is not enough. You need also to understand the network of your change agent or key influencers and match that to the type of change you are attempting to make happen.
The first notable finding in the research is that sponsorship by the senior leader is just not enough. It didn’t matter if the person leading the change is senior. If they don’t have the support of a change agent with the right network for the type of change. it just does not happen.
The second finding is that it’s important to know the type of change you’re aiming for and hence the type of network you need. If the change is divergent – challenging deeply help values and beliefs in the organisation – you need change agents who have a bridging network; people who can influence across different departments and functions. The shape of this network tends to be spread out, with people connected to the change agent from remote parts of the organisation. An example might be a central HR compensation leader who has worked in different divisions, understands the nuances of each business unit and is a change agent for a company-wide new bonus scheme. Their diverse knowledge and relationships across the organisation puts them in a good position to be able to position the change in a way that makes sense to the different business units and means also that they have the trust of people who themselves are scattered across the organisation. The bridging network gives better control over what, when and how the change is introduced.
If the change is incremental – it builds on rather than disrupts the values and norms of the company – the research suggests you need a change agent with a cohesive network. People in this network are closely connected to one another. This builds trust and mutual support. People will want to stick together and help each other. This introduces social pressure within the network to move together to achieve the change. Of course this type of network can also be very effective in blocking a change if the change agent is not fully on board.
Separate scientific research, found that no matter what shape the network is, 10 per cent are required to be ‘true believers’ in order to create a tipping point to get others on board.
The message from these two pieces of research is that formal sponsorship of change may give an illusion of power, but it is the shape of informal networks and the number of people who are convinced that is likely to make the most difference. For HR this means revising your stakeholder mapping and moving away from a focus on the most senior stakeholder, to the most connected and understanding.