December 7 2011
Change management Disney Style (Part 2)
TweetFollowing on
from my previous blog post, I am now going to share more insight
from the magical wonderland that is Disney. Well actually the pause
for thoughts I had with some other experiences whilst on vacation
there.
Every day
there are a series of parades and presentations at various places
across the park. These are high profile, themed events with a
significant number of Disney characters. The parades are less
interactive but a number of the events are far more interactive with
both kids and adults alike being pulled into the atmosphere and
getting engaged with the “stars”. Viewing this put a permanent smile
on all around as well as those involved. The whole atmosphere was
taken up to a happier fun time – a true Disney magic moment!
What did I
learn from these events? It made me think of organizational culture
and the way change managers work with businesses to influence and
encourage a more receptive audience within the business. If a
business decides to restructure, change its processes or reposition
itself – one of the key roles of getting the business ready for the
change is to help the people understand and be receptive to the
change. All the explanations in the world can be made, but if you
stick to a system of talking at people, the likelihood is that they
won’t engage with the new ethos, culture or approach. But getting
them to take an active part in the change process, including them in
the development and delivery produces a different take on the
change. Their involvement encourages not just acceptance of the
upcoming change, but also promotes a cultural shift within the
organization to embrace the change and no doubt take it on far
faster than otherwise. So my recommendation is to get the people
involved in the change development, develop change agents in the
business from those at the front of the acceptance line and take
forward the change as an engaging and inclusive experience and never
just tell people about the change.
I noticed that
there are two types of eating establishments at the core of Disney
food provision. One involves an all as you can eat menu, with a
fixed price and a buffet style of food gathering. The second is the
table based service, where you order from a menu and pay for what
you order. Now I never went to any of the buffet – all you can eat
fiestas, preferring to choose specific items, but they were
extremely popular. This made me think about the amount of effort we
put into delivering communications, learning events and explanations
of change events. We rarely provide the “buffet” experience. Should
we perhaps consider a central point for all information about a
change and allow people to come along as and when they want to,
gathering as much information as they can manage, but enabling them
to come back time and again. Now I have seen that successfully done
with project plans and implementation plans for IT delivery, in
simple calendar styles and use of internal intranets, information
boards and libraries to provide a single point of access to all
information about a certain upcoming change. I agree that this has
to be supplemented with other engagement activities, but sometimes
its worth remembering that different people learn in different ways,
and for some that may mean they will learn best by just going and
getting information as it arises.
My final point
to share about the Disney experience relates to the journey out of
there, or more to the point, the problems we had. We were leaving by
train, from the Parc Disney - Marne la Vallée-Chessy station,
through to London, with a change in Lille. We had done the same
journey there and ha a few moments but generally it has gone without
issue. However, the TGV train we were supposed to catch up to Lille,
was running late. The frustrations I felt in just seeing train
departure times pushed back, several times, and every one without
communications, is totally understandable. My French is not perfect
but good enough to understand station announcements. When over 2
hours later it arrived, I was not best pleased.
However, they
put us in first class on the TGV and because we had missed the
proper connection in Lille, the stopped a through train to get us to
London and equally upgraded us to the top tier on board. So by the
time we got to London, almost 2 hours later than planned, we were
tired but less angry with the train issue.
What is my point on this
train journey? Well apart from good reactions to customer services
etc. it gave me two thoughts. The first is to always explain why a
change event is being pushed back time and again. A lack of
communication, and effective and appropriate communications at that,
can disengage people with an upcoming change. Make sure they
understand why the delivery dates or go live dates are changed and
understand how that will be accounted for. The second point reflects
the way we were upgraded on the train. If things are not going well,
accept that people will be developing anger and frustration, so
perhaps you need to find a way to provide some cream or sugar on
top. If the system is being delayed, or the relocation pushed back,
can you now provide it with something extra to make the wait
worthwhile? Don’t be afraid to push the project sponsor or project
manager to deliver a little more than originally planned to make up
for the delays and subsequent frustrations.
When planning
this vacation, I never expected to find so many opportunities for
change management reflection but I guess it just goes to show how
much it is an integral part of the way people lead their life and
the experience through it reflects the constant change taking place
in the world.