Captain Kiwi Nicholson, Tampa Battalion
Leading Change the USAREC Way
By Capt. Kiwi C Nicholson, St. Petersburg, Fla., Company Commander
May 19, 2014
After recently reading an article in Harvard Business Review by John P. Kotter titled “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” I was curious as to how these techniques could be applied to the business of recruiting.
The article focuses on using lessons learned over a decade from more than 100 businesses during periods of transitioning practices and adjusting to a challenging market. Due to most companies reporting lukewarm results, Kotter created a system that divided the transformation into an 8-step process.
Successful businesses that understood the change process created by Kotter and allowed the proper amount of time to implement the phases of change. Businesses that skipped steps, wanted an immediate change, or made critical mistakes during a phase generally failed.
The 8-step process
1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
-- Examining market and competitive realities
-- Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities
Creating the urgency for change is difficult unless the majority realizes that business-as-usual is completely unacceptable. Urgency in USAREC is rarely an issue because we are constantly looking for new ways to capture and adapt to a liquid market. We make minor changes monthly, but major changes switching from in
2. Forming a Powerful Guiding Coalition
-- Assembling a group with enough power to lead the change effort
-- Encouraging the group to work together as a team
Power is a subjective word. I prefer to use a term that is not primarily associated with high military ranks such as influential. The coalition should indeed include the head of the organization, but also requires input from every level to make a successful transformation. It is crucial to have people that possess high levels of expertise, but who also have great reputations and working relationships. For us, this is important and will lead to creating a vision that is understood and more importantly accepted by everyone.
3. Create a Vision
-- Creating a vision to help direct the change effort
-- Developing strategies for achieving that vision
The vision will help clarify the direction in which the organization needs to move for future success. Imagine taking the commander’s intent from an operations order, combining it with the mission statement and giving it to the influential coalition of experts to expand and transform it into a picture that is very appealing and easy to communicate. Plans, directives, and programs without a sensible vision can become disorderly and cause boredom.
By Capt. Kiwi C Nicholson, St. Petersburg, Fla., Company Commander
May 19, 2014
After recently reading an article in Harvard Business Review by John P. Kotter titled “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” I was curious as to how these techniques could be applied to the business of recruiting.
The article focuses on using lessons learned over a decade from more than 100 businesses during periods of transitioning practices and adjusting to a challenging market. Due to most companies reporting lukewarm results, Kotter created a system that divided the transformation into an 8-step process.
Successful businesses that understood the change process created by Kotter and allowed the proper amount of time to implement the phases of change. Businesses that skipped steps, wanted an immediate change, or made critical mistakes during a phase generally failed.
The 8-step process
1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
-- Examining market and competitive realities
-- Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities
Creating the urgency for change is difficult unless the majority realizes that business-as-usual is completely unacceptable. Urgency in USAREC is rarely an issue because we are constantly looking for new ways to capture and adapt to a liquid market. We make minor changes monthly, but major changes switching from in
2. Forming a Powerful Guiding Coalition
-- Assembling a group with enough power to lead the change effort
-- Encouraging the group to work together as a team
Power is a subjective word. I prefer to use a term that is not primarily associated with high military ranks such as influential. The coalition should indeed include the head of the organization, but also requires input from every level to make a successful transformation. It is crucial to have people that possess high levels of expertise, but who also have great reputations and working relationships. For us, this is important and will lead to creating a vision that is understood and more importantly accepted by everyone.
3. Create a Vision
-- Creating a vision to help direct the change effort
-- Developing strategies for achieving that vision
The vision will help clarify the direction in which the organization needs to move for future success. Imagine taking the commander’s intent from an operations order, combining it with the mission statement and giving it to the influential coalition of experts to expand and transform it into a picture that is very appealing and easy to communicate. Plans, directives, and programs without a sensible vision can become disorderly and cause boredom.
4. Communicating the Vision
-- Using every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies
-- Teaching new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition
This is the most important step because in order for everyone to value the vision of the organization they need to know the actual value, what it means, and why it is important to the job they are doing. No one will follow a plan they do not completely understand or believe in. They will go along with the plan, but we need commitment to make the change successful. How? No one wants to hear long boring lectures or read thick publications. Use untraditional methods like social media to broadcast and interactive scenario based discussions to communicate the change.
5. Empowering Others to Act on the Vision
-- Getting rid of obstacles to change
-- Changing the systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision
-- Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions
All obstacles must be removed, giving Soldiers a sense of control to make it their own by adding personality while keeping the vision of the business. Ownership of the change is welcoming and collapses barriers. The Achilles-heel of change in USAREC is the fear of not being able to produce the change simultaneously with mission production, which makes all efforts easy to undermine when they are not immediately effective.
6. Planning for and Creating Short-Term Wins
-- Planning for visible performance improvements
-- Creating those improvements
-- Recognizing and rewarding employees involved in the improvements
Transformations take time and motivation is easily lost without short-term goals to meet, celebrate, and make the ultimate mission feel attainable. We are great at doing this already. Our annual recruiting mission is broken down by quarter, phase line, and lead line on every level from USAREC Headquarters to a remote center in Guam. Seeking and achieving the smaller victories sustains morale and builds confidence in the new vision.
7. Consolidating Improvements and Producing More Change
-- Using increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision
-- Hiring, promoting, and developing employees who can implement the vision
-- Reinvigorating the process with new projects, theme, and change agents
We have all watched sports teams celebrate with 40 seconds remaining on the game clock only to lose on the final play. We have all watched a center or company celebrate a phase line victory and fail the quarter and possibly the annual mission. All plans need an after action review and goals for improvement. Even if there is success, there is always room to refine systems that are not consistent with the vision. Reward and continue to develop change initiators so the behavior becomes part of the culture.
8. Institutionalizing New Approaches
-- Articulating the connections between the new behaviors and corporate success
-- Developing the means to ensure leadership development and succession
To create the culture, maintain the urgency for successful continuation of the transformation by basing promotion requirements, position changes, and evaluations on the transformed vision so it becomes the norm. Show how the new behaviors, attitudes, and approaches helped performance through social media, newsletters, and discussion.
In recruiting, we must remember that change takes time. I will not hesitate to say that following Kotter’s steps is extremely challenging when a center can lose 50 percent of its recruiters in less than year. Step 4, Communicating the Vision, is critical to offset the turnover and reduce the rate of error. By using Kotter’s 8-step process with minimal errors and an adequate amount time, the vision is unlikely to fail.
References
Kotter, J. P. (2007, January 1). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Retrieved from http://hbr.org
-- Using every vehicle possible to communicate the new vision and strategies
-- Teaching new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition
This is the most important step because in order for everyone to value the vision of the organization they need to know the actual value, what it means, and why it is important to the job they are doing. No one will follow a plan they do not completely understand or believe in. They will go along with the plan, but we need commitment to make the change successful. How? No one wants to hear long boring lectures or read thick publications. Use untraditional methods like social media to broadcast and interactive scenario based discussions to communicate the change.
5. Empowering Others to Act on the Vision
-- Getting rid of obstacles to change
-- Changing the systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision
-- Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions
All obstacles must be removed, giving Soldiers a sense of control to make it their own by adding personality while keeping the vision of the business. Ownership of the change is welcoming and collapses barriers. The Achilles-heel of change in USAREC is the fear of not being able to produce the change simultaneously with mission production, which makes all efforts easy to undermine when they are not immediately effective.
6. Planning for and Creating Short-Term Wins
-- Planning for visible performance improvements
-- Creating those improvements
-- Recognizing and rewarding employees involved in the improvements
Transformations take time and motivation is easily lost without short-term goals to meet, celebrate, and make the ultimate mission feel attainable. We are great at doing this already. Our annual recruiting mission is broken down by quarter, phase line, and lead line on every level from USAREC Headquarters to a remote center in Guam. Seeking and achieving the smaller victories sustains morale and builds confidence in the new vision.
7. Consolidating Improvements and Producing More Change
-- Using increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision
-- Hiring, promoting, and developing employees who can implement the vision
-- Reinvigorating the process with new projects, theme, and change agents
We have all watched sports teams celebrate with 40 seconds remaining on the game clock only to lose on the final play. We have all watched a center or company celebrate a phase line victory and fail the quarter and possibly the annual mission. All plans need an after action review and goals for improvement. Even if there is success, there is always room to refine systems that are not consistent with the vision. Reward and continue to develop change initiators so the behavior becomes part of the culture.
8. Institutionalizing New Approaches
-- Articulating the connections between the new behaviors and corporate success
-- Developing the means to ensure leadership development and succession
To create the culture, maintain the urgency for successful continuation of the transformation by basing promotion requirements, position changes, and evaluations on the transformed vision so it becomes the norm. Show how the new behaviors, attitudes, and approaches helped performance through social media, newsletters, and discussion.
In recruiting, we must remember that change takes time. I will not hesitate to say that following Kotter’s steps is extremely challenging when a center can lose 50 percent of its recruiters in less than year. Step 4, Communicating the Vision, is critical to offset the turnover and reduce the rate of error. By using Kotter’s 8-step process with minimal errors and an adequate amount time, the vision is unlikely to fail.
References
Kotter, J. P. (2007, January 1). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Retrieved from http://hbr.org