I attended a gathering of several senior managers at the College as a part of a Leadership development effort. The topic of discussion is managing change. We had a very interesting meeting and discussed the challenges everyone faces in trying to affect changes at the institution. It was great to hear the different perspectives on the same issue. This also provided us an opportunity to interact with colleagues with whom we may not interact in the same fashion. I learned a few things about what is going on at the College.

It was apparent that each of us, because of a variety of reasons, including the position we occupy and the areas of our responsibilities, bring a different view point to  change management. Since LTS needs to deal with change on a regular basis, I wanted to share how we tend to implement changes.

Communication – Let us face it, no one likes changes. Change is painful and time consuming. We therefore need to articulate as clearly as possible the rationale for the change. As a change agent, you need to be convinced that what you are doing is the right thing to do. If you are being asked to lead a change and you are not a believer or a strong advocate, it will show and those that are being asked to change will jump on it! In LTS, we try as best as possible to communicate the changes through multiple channels and we try to explain why is it that we are making changes. Does it always work? Absolutely not! But we try very hard to communicate effectively.

Partnership & Support – Creating a strong support network is essential part of succeeding. Even if you came up with the idea for a change, trying to find someone who is the most appropriate to advocate and lead the change is extremely important. For eg. LTS initiated the discussion about Open Access policy in the Advisory Committee on Library and Technology Policies. I discussed it with the Provost and gained his support. Then we found that Prof Metaxas is passionate about open access. Whereas many other colleges like us are struggling to explain the advantages of open access to the faculty and adopt a policy, we worked with Prof. Metaxas to help the college adopt the policy in record time. He continues to be a huge supporter of this initiative and we are so thankful to him. Most of what we have accomplished in the last four years can be traced to this type of strategy – find support from those who understand what the change is, what it means to the College to undergo such a change and are willing to partner with you to try to make it happen. Similarly, we partnered with Public Affairs to bring about the change to Drupal.

Empathy – This is critical! Put yourself in the shoes of the others who are affected by the change. Or think about how you yourself were affected by changes in your own life. This will give you a whole new perspective on how difficult changes can be. This will help you prepare for the changes and respond to the various needs. For eg. transitioning from FirstClass to Google was such a monumental change. Believe me, I still keep hearing from people about how great FirstClass was. But, we prepared as well as we can. We held training sessions, we were available to help anyone who needed help, including one on one. I had several faculty members write to me on how they just cannot keep up with the pace of group training and are afraid to ask for help. I sent my staff for several one on one session with those who reached out, which minimized the pain.

Process – Change management is complex and having as complete a well-defined process as possible is important. This involves a project plan, a clear set of goals, timelines, and leaders. Successful execution of changes also requires someone willing to make decisions, sometime quick. Project creep is unavoidable in our institutions, but try to minimize it. Note that “change is constant” applies even to the process. Change whatever it takes to stay the course. Don’t be afraid to accept failure. In LTS we believed that we are capable to developing a system that can replace 25Live, our event management system. We started the process, but it did not go as intended for a variety of reasons that are beyond the scope of this discussion. We said “it is time to move on” and looked at other ways to make 25Live to perform better!

Expectations – As you may have heard me say, I think everything in life follows a “normal distribution”. No matter how well you plan and execute any change, you will have a normal distribution of those affected. Some will love what you are doing, some will hate passionately what you are doing and most will be somewhere in the middle. The goal is to skew the normal to the right. And you also need to account for the “weight”. In terms of the numbers of the affected who are unhappy, it may be a small number, but their collective influence may be far greater. Similarly, don’t simply go by a few highly enthusiastic adopters of change. Balance is the key. Apply all the factors above to reach an acceptable equilibrium. For eg. communicate more with those who are unhappy to understand why they feel the way they do.  See if you can bring a few of them along through more and effective communication. Figure out if the enthusiastic supporters can be your partners in affecting the change. Don’t be afraid to change the course, if those who are unhappy about the process are making reasonable requests for change. For example, we in LTS set deadlines for accomplishing new projects, such as the new portal. However, every time we are ready to roll it out, we have consulted with the functional offices and have postponed the release based on what we felt were very reasonable requests to choose a better timing . Of course, there is no ideal timing and this request for change cannot go forever!

When change is essential it is much easier to do. For eg. startups are known not to be afraid of changes, but many well established businesses are averse to change. This is primarily because startups do not have a choice but to make changes to be successful. Well established businesses think that they are immune from changes because of the very definition of “well-established”. We know that this is no longer true, so they are catching up. This is so true in Higher Ed.

Some of the institutions who are struggling financially are innovating and making changes faster than those who are in a more comfortable position. However, “past performance is not indicative of the future results”…