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The 5 Cs of Change

Guest post by: Ian Windle

Article Overview: Understanding how to coach, challenge and inspire others around us to change is so valuable in our daily lives, whether we are at work or play. You can have the most compelling personalities or the most extraordinary creative ideas driving the change – yet to no avail, without coupling them to the ‘5 Cs of change'. LiveChange’s 5 Cs of Change help any change to take place in our lives, be it in or out of the workplace – and you have to navigate all 5 steps in the right order….or you risk wasting your time. So what are the 5 Cs of Change?

The 5 Cs of Change

Understanding how to coach, challenge and inspire others around us to change is so valuable in our daily lives, whether we are at work or play.

You can have the most compelling personalities or the most extraordinary creative ideas driving the change – yet to no avail, without coupling them to the ‘5 Cs of change'. LiveChange’s 5 Cs of Change help any change to take place in our lives, be it in or out of the workplace – and you have to navigate all 5 steps in the right order….or you risk wasting your time.

So what are the 5 Cs of Change?

1. CONTEXT - Why?

Context is the first C. Something in our lives is demanding that things need to be different. It stems from one of two things:

ONE. There is an overwhelming desire to do or be something different and to move away from where we are to something new and exciting. Moving to a new place could be because we want to get a new job, earn more money, live in a new country or learn a new skill. These may be goals in themselves, or sub-goals along the way to an ultimate goal. But a word of caution; people who are motivated to move to a better place and who’ve taken time to figure out what this will look like often don’t take time to engage others in this first phase. They try to short-cut the process of change, and guess what, it fails!

When you get this stage right, all the rest falls into place. In fact, do it really well and people can pretty much demand the change take place – ultimately, what you want.

As in all phases of engagement, you need to think ‘whole-brain’. Unfortunately in organisations today we spend more time camped in the left-brain with lists, graphs, charts, papers and endless PowerPoint presentations containing all you know on the subject. To take people with us on a journey we need to grab their emotions and use right-brain thinking too! How do we do that? Tell a story, show an image, provide an inspirational speech, paint a picture. In short, try to get people to ‘stand in the vision’ of the future – to really imagine for themselves what it will be like when they’ve got to that place, and only then, will they want to work out how they can get there. That’s one part of context.

TWO. The classic ‘burning platform’ is the other driver of change - we just have to get away from the current context or situation . The best drivers of change often have both. The burning platform on its own is a great driver of change, but it doesn’t help with where we want people to go, it just engages people in what we need to leave behind. It has risks – it’s negative – it can paint a picture that says that everything we’ve been doing for the last few years has been wrong or a waste of time! If it is external changes that have put you in the current position, then that’s easier to deal with. One of the best ways to show things ‘can’t go on as they are’ is to show a ‘truth’. John Kotter has some great examples in his book ‘The Heart of Change’ and one of the best is the ‘gloves on the table’ below:

Gloves on the Table

A large national company in the US was looking at ways to cut costs and drive efficiency. An intern was employed to visit every factory they had and see what he could learn. He came back and reported that amongst his other findings each factory bought different gloves for their employees to wear

to handle their goods. The gloves varied in price from just a few dollars to $18. Also he found that even for the identical glove, different factories were paying different amounts. The manager asked the intern to get one example of each glove and label it with the price paid. With this large bag of gloves the manager covered the board room table and asked the Board members to take a look. ‘Seeing’ the truth of the massive cost differences between the gloves captured the full attention of the Board and helped to unblock the decision making logjam that had previously existed. The Board adopted the technique to break through other, much greater decision making logjams at the US company.



2. Leadership COALITION - Who?

For any change to lead to success it not only needs a sponsor who will be a passionate advocate and driver, but a coalition of people at the top of the business to support it. This group must be committed to creating the plans, engaging the right people, communicating with the workforce, shouting about the quick wins and overcoming the challenges along the way. They won’t do all the work, but they’ll make sure that it happens.

Critically, this group should have representatives from different functions and layers in the business – and not be simply from a single layer or level of job ranking. They need to own and drive the change, making sure it’s on track against clear milestones. They need to demonstrate and celebrate successes that will show to people that it is working. They need to create opportunities to be evangelists about what’s happening and what will happen to benefit the business and the people.

The group must have the complete confidence of the CEO who must be an advocate of their work and their achievements.

3. CHANGE - What?

What exactly is the change and what is required of the business and everyone in it to make it happen? The right information needs to be put in front of everyone in the business in the right way at the right time. This isn’t about sharing everything the senior management team know about the situational analysis, the goals, strategies and drivers and the actions required. It is about what people need to understand in order to fully buy-in to the change. As described in the ‘C’ for Context, it’s about engaging with their right-brain (visual and emotional buy-in), as well as their left-brain (facts, figures and analysis) and allowing them to discuss, digest and consider in order to arrive at their conclusions.

The changes that are going to take place in the business need to be part of a Communications and Engagement programme that gives employees enough time, different formats and media to appeal to different learning styles, the ability to discuss with colleagues, where they can discuss their concerns and have face to face Q & A time with the leaders of the organisation. This takes time and effort and cannot be done through a one-off event or sheep dip - it can only be part of an ongoing programme to be really effective.

4. Personal CLARITY - Aha!

‘I get it!’ is what you want to hear your people say in any change programme. Your people have to get it for themselves and if you’ve got the first 3 ‘Cs’ right, they will get it. Once people have real clarity and when they have joined the dots for themselves, the stress and tension will be lifted and the motivation to be part of the change kicks in.

If the other steps are all carried out correctly, personal clarity will happen for people. And this is where you start to measure the effectiveness of the change programme. How well do people understand the changes that are about to take place, how well do they feel engaged in the process and how committed are they to playing their part? Personal clarity is about people really ‘getting it’ and deciding for themselves if it is right for them.

5. COMMITMENT to Action - How?

When your people have a complete understanding of what is going to happen and have bought in to the changes, they will naturally ask ‘what is it I need to do?’. To get the ‘C’ for Commitment , it’s vital that everyone has the opportunity to take action. With any behaviour change, statistics show you need to repeat something around 20 or more times to make it a new behaviour. It’s critical that an early opportunity to do something different, which is constantly reinforced by the leading coalition, is provided.

So there you go, don’t blinker yourself to what change is possible. Use LiveChange’s 5 Cs of Change and you’ll surprise yourself about what you can achieve!

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Article Tags: action, aha, Change, clarity, coalition, communication, context, creative ideas, leadership, right brain



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