Growth Small Business Change Management - USA
Change Implementation and Feedback - Create an Engine That Drives and Sustains Change
|
Change Implementation and Feedback - Create an Engine That Drives and Sustains Change As a manager, does it matter to you that your change initiatives succeed? Then they need your attention. If asked about the biggest difference between successful changes and failure, I would have to say "feedback". Feedback is how a business demonstrates that a change matters -- the true priority of the change. It is also how it ensures a change sustains at the required standard. In short, feedback is how a business pays attention. But let us be clear about what we mean here. If someone comes up and says "Can I give you some feedback?" most of us groan inwardly and wonder what we have done wrong. That is because we confuse feedback with opinion. If the person is credible, we can choose whether to accept their opinion. But feedback is just information to an individual about their performance against a standard. Provided properly, feedback is the engine that drives sustained high performance. Below are five tips to help ensure that your use of feedback significantly improves your chances of change success. 1 Set standards - Feedback is useless without standards. People need to know the standard of performance that is needed. They do not know this through telepathy. If you need changed performance, you need to explain the new standards of performance required. You cannot expect higher performance if you do not tell people. Worse, NOTHING is more demoralising that receiving negative feedback about something that you did not know was important beforehand. 2 Set a feedback cycle that synchronises with the real job - People get feedback day-to-day on their 'real' jobs. This is how, in practice, a business demonstrates priority, attention and importance. If we put in a change, then we need to set up feedback at least as frequently and with similar weight to those forms of feedback we provide already. A new CRM system, for example, needs good discipline about data quality. If we provide daily feedback on revenue numbers as usual, but offer agents feedback on the quality of data capture only in monthly reports -- then our expensive CRM system will very soon be so much junk. 3 Automate it -- but pay personal attention - Feedback information needs to be objective and preferably automated. The standard is either met or it is not -- do not make it a matter of opinion. Then make sure the person gets the information in ways that they can use -- and that you know about it. 4 Catch people doing something right - Hearts sink at the prospect of feedback because it is usually offered when things are wrong. But people also need to be recognised for doing the job well (and know that you are aware of their good performance so they keep doing it). 5 Offer positive alternatives - When I used to direct theatre, I learned very quickly that to tell an actor not to do something was the kiss of death. If I did, they spent the rest of the rehearsal thinking about what they should not do, not what they should have been doing. It is the same at work. Every time you need to have the feedback conversation about a shortfall in performance, make sure that it is framed as giving the person something different to do, because what they are doing now is not working. Offering a positive alternative is practical and motivational. Do these things to set up a 'feedback engine' for any change that is important, and pay attention to the things that you need people to do differently. If you do, you will find that not only will you get better performance -- you will get it for longer. Copyright 2008 Bloomstorm Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Mike Bird is the founder of Bloomstorm, a consulting and training company that enables organizations to implement practical, effective change to deliver quick results. Find out more about us at http://www.bloomstorm.com - While there, sign up for your free regular copy of Bloomstorm Briefing, our regular newsletter that gives you tips, tools and techniques that you can use immediately to improve your change success. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mike_Bird |