Framework for Change Management Part I
In the last post How to Triple Your Chances of Hitting Your 2017 Productivity and Quality Goals we talked about how addressing behavior is just as important as technical changes when it comes to achieving hard goals. We used the frame work ATEEP:
A -Alignment
T -Team
E -Experiment
E -Execute
P -Permanence
For this post we’ll talk about Alignment and how it’s important. Alignment is when everyone understands clearly what need to be done and what the end goal is. An aligned team knows exactly what, how, where, when, and what they are trying to achieve and they know their role in it. They are bought in and there is little to no resistance to the goal. A good example of a team aligned is the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team. They were not the best team or the most experienced yet managed to win Gold against overwhelming odds. They focused on conditioning and each person knew their role on the team. They were also all bought into the fact that they could win.
One of the biggest challenges is around getting everyone bought into the goal. Many times we’ll have goal the leadership team comes up with and the rest of the team had to execute. This approach can work and there are alternative ways that will get you better results when it comes to getting an aligned team.
The more you can co-create the goals with the team the better it will be when they have to take ownership and help drive the changes. One method that works well is called appreciative inquiry. It’s a way to build from past successes when creating future goals. Another way is to simply have everyone bring ideas to the table and talk through them all and validate them on their merits and a pre-established set of criteria. As a leader you want to provide guidelines and non-negotiables while at the same time provide flexibility and creativity to create the goals.
If you want to learn more about ATEEP and how to implement it apply for a discovery call now and we can do a deep dive discovery of your situation at no cost if you qualify.