Why companies fail at executing change?

Why companies fail at executing change?

And what you can do about it….

Yes, it’s harsh but the data doesn’t lie. More than 80% of projects don’t deliver.  That’s a terrible statistic. 

 Think about how many money businesses spend on projects & the projects don’t deliver….hmmm if only something could be done.

There are 5 main reasons companies fail at making change, through major projects: 

1.      No executive sponsorship

2.      Insufficient budget

3.      Change resistant culture

4.      Only using internal resources, who have a day job

5.      The business case doesn’t explain the why in a way that people buy in to the change

So, for a bit more detail on the 5 reasons that companies fail to make change, through major projects:

No executive sponsorship

If you don’t have Executive Sponsorship, you are doomed. When money gets cut, and projects get reprioritised your project will be removed or cut first up.  If change is required from the change, you will need Executive approval to drive the change through, if you don’t have it you are doomed. 

 So what….

 You should have an Executive Sponsor, but also 2-3 other influential Executive Sponsors that can help you navigate the politics of getting things done and ensure they have your back when shit hits the fan.

Insufficient Budget

You know the budget processes where everyone bids and they give everyone their projects but just cut the top off the 20% of all projects, so no projects are funded correctly.  Without the right level of funding you need to cut corners and what you started as the plan is now in the toilet and you are making things up to hit all the metrics to ensure that the project is not cut further.

 So what…..

Fight for your budget. Have a detailed budget prepared and if they cut it show them what they are not going to get and the financial implications so you have an ROI story.  If they still don’t give it to you, adjust your business case for the new funding to ensure that you adjust people’s expectations on what will be delivered.

Change Resistant Culture

Have you ever worked in a company, where the company just couldn’t do change, it wasn’t that they didn’t want to, but they didn’t. They were paralysed. They had tried so many times and failed that they were all cynical about making change that when a new person came in they convinced them that they wouldn’t be able to change either, and not to bother.  And so the cycle of a change resistant culture is bred.  It’s really sad.  It’s possible to make change, but you will need to make people uncomfortable and if you have change resistant HR you will likely get yourself into all sorts of trouble. 

 So what…..

But for people like me I see this as a challenge and opportunity to show people change can be done.  However, for the normal person, this is incredibly sad and depressing and really does making change and successfully implemented projects hard, if not impossible.  You’ll find the PMO in these organisations is full of people that are stopping people from actually delivering on anything as well.  My only solution is they need Collin Ellis – he can actually help organisations with the culture change.

Internal Resources – who have a day job

Internal resources are great!  Actually, a combination of internal and external resources is a great mix for any successful project but need to take internal people off their day job to implement the project and backfill them.  Find strong leaders, change leaders and SME’s and put them on the project, and backfill them and give them a budget to hire some other people to support. But empower them. I kinda of answered the so what about on this one.

The Business Case doesn’t explain the Why

Do you know why you are making the change? Have you articulated to the people that need to buy in? Does it make sense?  Have you communicated it, and then communicated it and then again?  You need to be clear on the why and everyone else needs too, so when people get fed up, they remember why they are doing this project.

At Whiteark we love to work with businesses to help them deliver exceptional projects, that deliver results and financial outcomes.  We get our hands dirty to implement with your teams.  We will force the hard conversations, will challenge the team to think bigger, will make people a tad uncomfortable – but will make the project be successful.

Our approach and team are tailored to what you need, so reach out and have a conversation if you have a project you want to be successful or you need help on a project that needs to be restored or project portfolio reprioritised and reviewed

Reach out for a no obligation chat to Jo Hands on 0459826221, or jo.hands@whiteark.com.au

Article by Jo Hands, Whiteark Founder

Check more good stuff from our thought articles library

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Guide to Successful Integration

Getting a business merger right is no easy feat. You need to make sure that your technology integration is on point, and you need to get everyone on board with the plan.

It's easier said than done. But that's why we're here! We'll help you make sure your merger goes off without a hitch and that you're ready to take advantage of all its potential benefits as soon as possible.

We have some tips for making sure your merger is a success:

Strategising for your merger is a team effort, and we've got the tools to ensure that you come out on top. We'll help you evaluate your strategy for success and make sure that no one gets left out of the equation.

Getting the integration right is critical to ensure that the business has a ground footing to accelerate the integration benefits of the merged business.

Alignment at the Executive level will be a critical step in ensuring that the integration is clear.

A large part of the integration is about people and communication. That is, taking people on the journey so they understand what the plan is, why we are driving each activity and how they can be involved.lation.

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If you want to chat around integrations, reach out to Jo Hands on 0459826221 or email me on jo.hands@whiteark.com.au

Transforming your Sales and Service Model

Are you ready to take on a bold sales and service model transformation? Now is the time to reinvent your model and integrate the value your business provides into the “new” societal landscape post the global disruption of Covid-19. In today’s environment, your successful sales and service transformation will be enabled by strong leadership, facts driven from data and analytical insights, and new approaches to technology.

It is important that you remain flexible and resilient while looking to the future - redefine your operations so that you can emerge stronger than your competitors. You must pivot your sales and service models in response to the new societal landscape - purchasing power is shifting fast, the demand for digital channels is rising. To retain customers, protect revenues and realign go-to-market investments you must pivot your sales and service model to meet the constantly changing expectations of your customers.

Hold tight and embrace the uncertainty – be courageous and apply a different approach to how you would usually gain market share all while monitoring the shift in consumer demands to ensure you are ahead of the competition.

Below are the key considerations for redesigning your sales and service model:

• Rediscover your customer - understand your customers so that you can meet their evolving wants and needs so that you can remain relevant

• Redefine the sales and service journey – segment your customers and focus your efforts on the strongest and most profitable opportunities

• Enhance your product/service offering to meet customer expectations - reinvent through new narratives, approaches and terms, and diversify dynamic offers

• Enable your team with the tools and skills to succeed in today’s digital age – ensure you provide your team with the key enablers that they need to support them in being successful  including training and coaching, sales tools, technology

• Reward your sales and service resources for the right behaviour/outcomes – align on priorities, determine the metrics to monitor, measure performance and reward success to keep your workforce motivated

If you need help with transforming your sales and service model to meet the needs of customers in today’s environment, please reach out to Whiteark for a no obligation consultation and we can help you navigate your future to success.

Linking transformation to strategy

In today’s business environment, transformation can take many forms but no matter the type it revolves around the need to generate new value - unlock new opportunities, drive new growth, deliver new efficiencies.

It is critical that the transformation project aligns to the company’s strategy – strategy is fundamental in guiding/aligning decisions and actions to ensure they support the achievement of the company’s strategic goals. A sound strategy helps shape an executable transformation objective.

The value that your transformation project will create/deliver must be aligned to your company strategy and it will help with articulating desired transformation outcomes, from a financial perspective or from an operational perspective.

Once you have aligned your transformation ambition you can build out your transformation program. 

THE STEPS

1. Clearly defined company strategy

2. Determine your company strategic priorities

3. Define your transformation ambition – ensure it aligns to your company strategy/strategic priorities

4. Get leaders involved

5. Build your transformation plan

6. Be clear on what success is

7. Gather resources and expertise

8. Choose the right enablers

9. Focus on culture and change management

10. Measure success

For more support on transformation please explore our range of thought leadership articles…

Does it take a crisis for change to occur quickly?

Sitting around the table at Christmas everyone talked about how quickly their companies responded to Covid-19. People were shocked and surprised and impressed all at once.

In general companies are slow to make a change but when faced with a crisis they were able to respond differently, quickly, decisively and achieve an outcome. Why does it take a crisis to make a change this quickly? In recent conversations on this topic with my network, many people believe that's just how it is and nothing you can do to fix it -- but I'm not convinced that is right and would love to explore this further.

Speed is a differentiator for companies:

•    Speed to market competitive advantage

•    Speed on process drives efficiency and productivity

•    Speed to deliver product or service

•    Speed to pivot when something goes wrong

So if speed is so important why don't companies focus on what is slowing them down and focus on increasing speed. There seems like a lot of benefits of speed.

The Four Factors…

Below are 4 key factors that slow companies down. Do any of these resonate for your company?

1.         Process, policies and red tape.

Companies implement processes, policies and standards to ensure consistent application of outcomes across the company. This can create barriers for speed to get things done.

2.         Unclear accountabilities.

It's not clear who is responsible or accountable for the activity. Many meetings but no one takes responsibility.

3.         Unclear delegation.

It's not clear who can make the decision or it needs executive approval and therefore this is a formal process that takes time (6-8 weeks).

4.         Leadership team unable to make a decision.

They go around in circles on the pros and cons before making a decision - sometimes a decision is ever made. Making no decision is worse than making the wrong decisions.

I don't believe there needs to be a crisis to speed up businesses.

Survival and competitive positioning rely on speed and therefore every company needs to consider how they increase their speed. Consider what is slowing your company down and what changes are required to speed it up and the benefits.

Reflect, reset and charge -- take charge in leading your company to increase the speed across all aspects. What are you waiting for? Time is money!!

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Looking to reset your own strategic priorities and make some change in your organisation? Let us help.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes. We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Change isn’t easy, our guide to successfully navigate change

Change is not easy.  There are so many leadership books around change. Leading people through change, the change curve etc stories to tell people, videos to get people engaged and management courses on how to navigate it but change is a strange thing…

There is a natural resistant to change – more often than not people will put up a wall in relation to change – there are so many reasons not to change, to not do thing differently but above all else change takes effort and courageous and most people don’t want to make the extra effort or be courageous enough.

This explains why 70% of organisations fail to executive change.  They have the plan and strategy and it all makes sense but can’t make the change.  This is a major issue, cost and reason for poor financial / commercial outcomes for businesses, so what is the secret?

Strong leadership that explains the why and takes people on the journey to deliver.  A mandate to make change in the organisation is required from the senior leaders / shareholders otherwise it will fail.  Having strong leaders that understand the why and how and work with the team in the trenches to drive champion celebrate and push the change. 

It’s not easy  - it takes tenacity and persistent to continue to make changes to the organisation.  If you are doing it right there will be resistant and push back and barriers for you to keep going – you then know you are on the right track.  Find some people that support the change and can help champion with you to provide support.

Looking Back…

Looking back it’s the time in my career when I have overcome and adversity and made change despite the naysayers that I am most proud of the outcome.  Delivering outcomes for businesses is what I love – making a different to commercial model and financial outcomes is my number 1 passion.  There is such an opportunity to make a difference for businesses especially post COVID but having the courage to do this is critical.

What are the key things you should consider when making change:

• Having support at the senior level for the change

• Being clear on the why and communicating this

• Getting people to see the greater good of the work that needs to get done

• Track and measure the outcome

• Hold people to account

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Looking to reset your own strategic priorities and make some change in your organisation? Let us help.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes. We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Six tips for leading people through change

All companies undergo change, but few execute change successfully.

When leading people through change, the most effective leaders devote substantial effort in engaging everyone involved in the change, and understand that people need time to adapt to the change.

The magic six

There are six key competencies required to successfully lead people through change - communicate, collaborate, commit, support, influence and learn.

Communicate.

Communicate what the change is and the purpose and benefits of the change, this will increase buy-in.

Collaborate.

Bring people together to plan and execute change - encourage employees to break out of their silos and don’t tolerate unhealthy competition. It’s important to include employees in decision-making early on to strengthen their commitment to change.

Commit.

Display resilience, persistence, and willingness to adapt to challenges and remain positive and patient with results.

Support.

Remove barriers to employee success, including personal barriers such as wounded egos and a sense of loss, as well as professional barriers such as the time and resources necessary to carry out a change plan.

Influence.

Influence is about gaining compliance and commitment to drive change. Identify critical stakeholders and define what “buy-in” looks like from each of them to result in leading to a successful outcome. Communicate the vision for the change in a way that resonates with their value drivers.

Learn.

Never assume you have all the answers, ask questions, and gather formal and informal feedback. Input and feedback will allow you to make constant adjustments during the change.

Navigating change is not easy, hence it is critical for leaders of change to be resilient, because it helps people cope with the inherent pressure of change, uncertainty, and any setbacks.

Need to lead your team through change? Let us help.

Focused on delivering both commercial and financial outcomes, we take care of your people to ensure they remain engaged and excited. We understand that when it comes to strategy, execution is actually the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for your business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you, by emailing us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

How to ensure your transformation is successful

Getting your transformation right is more important than ever. We are approaching the pointy end of 2020 and it’s time to think strategically and anticipate, and prepare what your business will look when the new normal emerges.

Your company may need to move in a new direction, accelerate product and service innovations, accelerate digitisation across the organisation, reduce expenses and improve efficiencies, or strengthen your competitive position. No matter what the business driver is, they will require a shift from the current state.

Planning and executing a transformation program to realise critical strategic objectives isn’t easy. It’s hard to believe that more than 70% of transformation programs do not successfully deliver what was required. Often, the plan that has been developed is right, it’s when you get into the execution phase that problems start to arise. People in the organisation then start to become cynical, “the last transformation program didn’t deliver the desired results so why would this one be any different”. Renaming the transformation program or allocating a different group of resources doesn’t usually result in the achievement of your desired outcomes.

We provide practical hands-on tips on how to ensure your transformation program is a success:

Lead from the front

Appoint a leader that is to be accountable for the program.  Be sure your leader is prepared to effectively lead people through change, be visible and drive the importance of this program. 

Be clear on what success is

Define what you are going to do, why you will do it, what the benefits of change are, and what the dangers of not changing are. Ensure you get buy-in from key stakeholders who will support the transformation.

Checklist:

• Has a clear vision of the future been articulated and widely accepted?

• Is the rationale for change sensible, clear and sound?

• Are benefits well defined?

• Does the case for change/opportunity outweigh risk?

• Has a clear roadmap been developed and shared to gain input and support?

• Have stakeholders who are critical to the transformation’s success been identified and their personal value drivers learned?

Is it clear how stakeholders will be proactively involved in making the transformation happen, to build their support and maintain their engagement?

Find your champions

Develop a champion network across the organisation to support and drive the program; ensuring key messages and impacts are well understood and accepted. Use this network to do communications, get feedback and help you create a positive momentum in the organisation / team around this program.

Importance of Change Management

Don’t underestimate change management requirements to successfully embed change in the organisation. Change management is a buzz word but the importance of it is critical to ensure the program is a success.  Work out what the team needs to support the change and provide the guidance required to ensure that the change is implemented.

Measure success

Accurately measure and track success. Ensure you are transparent where things are off track and communicate risks and challenges and appropriate mitigation plans.

This framework will guide you through your transformation, but the real power is in the effectiveness of the execution. And that’s where we come in.

Need to ensure that your own business transformation is successful? Let us help.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations. Focused on delivering both commercial and financial outcomes. We understand that execution is the hardest part, and we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Tracking the success of your strategy

A strategic plan is critical to driving alignment across your organisation; it provides clarity, direction and focus. But how do you know if your company is headed in the right direction, moving towards achieving your goals, delivering your strategic plan? The answer is… measurement.

During the process of building a strategic plan, you set strategic goals; outcomes that the company attempts to reach when crafting a strategic plan. In order to work towards achieving these goals it is important to measure key performance metrics that indicate whether you are on track to achieving your goals.

There are many options for performance metrics, and choosing the right ones can be challenging, but it’s crucial to decide carefully because these metrics will be the focus of effort in your company to help reach the most valuable goals. Tracking the wrong metrics is almost as bad as tracking nothing at all and can lead to poor decision making, along with a waste time and money collecting information that is not going to benefit the business.

When deciding on the right metrics for tracking your strategy’s success, there are a few guiding principles:

Align your metrics to your strategic objectives

Your metrics should be clearly tied to your strategic objectives and move your employees toward the actions you want. Metrics will consider all areas of the business to ensure all departments have clarity on how they impact the overall company goal.

Keep it simple

Don’t overload staff with too many KPIs to track.

Maintain up-to-date data

Be sure your measures include the latest data and are reported on regularly, as this is the key to making them a source of feedback on efforts and an early warning system for problems.

Use dashboards

Be sure to present data clearly using easy to understand visuals. Performance dashboards are an excellent tool for tracking key metrics. Your dashboard metrics should make it impossible to hide from failure.

Review metrics

You should review your metrics to discuss the progress of your strategic plan, and to ensure your choice of measures are the right ones - providing useful information and stimulating the best results.

A well-designed set of KPIs should provide a clear indication of current levels of performance and help your people make better decisions that bring the business closer to achieving its strategic objectives.

The right metrics will:

• Help you identify how your business is currently performing

• Tell you what to focus on

• Provide direction and alignment across the organisation

• Help with decision making

• Drive desired performance results

• Ultimately achieve your strategic goals

Looking to track your own success?

Let us help. To learn more about how to build your strategy contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au