10 success criteria for major transformation and turnarounds

I'm the thick of the conference season and awards judging now so I get to see a lot of stuff in a short space of time. In particular lots about major transformation programmes in order to build great staff and customer experiences. So whilst chairing the National Customer Services Awards presentations yesterday I made a few notes from the past month.

The common success factors in building great customer and people businesses
1) Leadership built on uncompromising values (take a look at first direct's or Google Inc's in our libraryat www.budd.uk.com). They give absolute clarity and simplicity in their challenge and vision such that anyone can understand. To build absolute clarity and buy in that it is worth spending substantially to drive a customer based strategy.

2) Ask the customers – nearly always the first step in creating awareness of dissatisfaction, and what to fix first and with what importance. It usually requires experiential learning as well so internal people “get it”.

3) Ask the frontline staff – they usually know what ought to be done to achieve the challenge – this is at the heart of change working well . The leader doesn’t ask what changes to make, but sets out clearly where they’re going and consults extensively on how people think they can get the business there. He/she explains why some ideaas aren’t feasible, and why some things are chosen. He/she uses this to set up continuous processes for this kind of consultation and listening in order to “change the change” later

4) Support the change with the right resources and training– so each person feels equipped to do the new things. Frontline management and middle management usually need more training and coaching than frontline staff. They need to know how to coach rather than critique

5) Make sure each person has time to do the job the new way, taking account of the fact that “its not something else on top of what you do, it’s the new way you do it”. Adequate resource planning means people can do a great job

6) Support the change by measuring different things differently. Measure individuals on things they can affect, not the things they cant

7) The timescales are much sharper than would be first seen as reasonable – after the plan has been formulated, not before. It takes a long time to consult and communicate and that shouldnt be cut short if the change is to be sustainable

8) Massive amounts of formal and informal communication – the comms plan is as big as the project plan

9) Proper planning & review – not next step planning. Consumption planning – ie planning at the rate of change a person can absorb. Communications planning. Project planning and stakeholder support comes thro in every conference as a key factor. Project managers don’t have the necessary change skills and need training in many cases

10) Back to leaders and managers – stamina of vision. Each decisions made all along the way stick to the values and vision. Any deviation introduces cynicism.

Jonathan Wilson who heads up our human factors practice ( "you build it, I'll get them to use it") has some great methodologies for change so get in touch if you'd like to discuss the change you're embarking on