Leading Change: The First 100 Days

It is the end of April and tax season is over. That is a big sigh of relief, except that roughly every four years it marks another huge milestone - the US President issues a “100-Day Report”. Why? The people voted and the new president is in office with a new agenda. Do we really expect a major accomplishment in just one hundred days? Maybe not, but this is the time for the agenda and ideas to become a mandate: for it to take root with all the key stakeholders who need to be accountable for important elements of the plan’s success.

Unfortunately, many business leaders underestimate the importance of the first one hundred days when announcing and managing significant changes. Frequently, leaders announce the change, hear the instant positive feedback, and assume that the organization will take it from there. During this excitement, leaders tend to ignore the naysayer’s reactions. For most people, the excitement about the change reaches a plateau before the real impact on each individual begins to set in. When the new reality becomes clear, your ability to move the organization forward could gain momentum or just as easily reverse direction. If that happens, the change will fail completely.

Have you noticed that when you announced a big strategy change and you thought it was working when after a period it becomes obvious the change did not happen? While a major change in strategy is still fresh, you must work to gain the momentum to shift people towards the idea across your organization. When people hear your message, they will internalize what it means to them, how they benefit, and what they need to do to make it happen.

You have to have everyone in the company talking about it. Your top management team must be communicating and demonstrating their enthusiastic support. Indeed, all of your key leaders, including highly influential top performers must act favorably toward the idea. If you are going to build momentum behind this change, then your work starts at the beginning and you must sustain the effort.

During the first 100-day period, you cannot over-communicate to your leadership team. You must communicate often and show that you are holding everyone in the company accountable for executing the change. Doing so will increase the likelihood that the momentum will build in your favor. Have the stakeholders report frequently on progress toward achieving key change milestones. Some implementation dates will occur many months later. These progress reports should be both upwards to the CEO, and downwards to the employee population. This communication will reinforce their commitment and demonstrate their support to their peer group – an important factor in keeping the momentum going.

In most companies, three key powerful factors feed the resistance to change, or inertia – and inertia is the enemy of change. The first is fear. People resist moving toward a direction that is not familiar. They fear the unknown and want to know how they will benefit from the change (aka “what’s in it for me?”). If employees are uncertain about what this change will mean for them later on they will be reluctant to commit.

The second factor is control. In every organization, a political fabric determines how things work and who will do it and even what the work will be. This political fabric relies on the personal desires and goals of key people to gain more control. The fabric gains strength from the network of people who will benefit from the influence of the political leaders. Those who fear that their position is at risk if they do not cooperate further fuel its power.

The third factor is leadership. Are you considering significant changes such as: entering new markets with new products, changing the entire customer service orientation or re-branding the company and its products? When you embark on a major change initiative, the leader must quickly achieve a visibility and respect as a mandate of the organization.

If you do not gain and sustain the momentum on the project through highly visible leadership in the first one hundred days, then the likelihood of its success is small. You need to make the changes needed to shift the operational and behaviors of the company to your new strategy. Otherwise, key stakeholders will revert to their familiar roles. The political network will slowly reshape the plan and shift the priorities of the organization accordingly. Your entire plan will begin to unravel.

Superficial elements of the plan may appear to be successful. External measures and positioning of the “new” process or function seem consistent with your plan. Employees take cues from their leaders, and if the leaders are working against your strategy then they will fall in line. Unfortunately, they give nothing more than lip service to implementing your new strategy.

You can eliminate the inevitable impact of inertia that threatens the building and maintaining of momentum for the change. Here is how:

1. Create a plan. Make sure you involve all of the key leadership team in the planning. Have each of them focus substantial energy over a short period of just a few months to achieve the goals of the change plan. Launch an all-consuming short-term project to reduce the opportunity for the political network to undermine your objectives.

2. Keep the key stakeholders very busy. Have each one demonstrate that they are taking the steps necessary to plan and implement the change. They must be champions of the change with their employees. They should not have enough time to reevaluate or modify the goals of your plan based on their personal political ambitions.

3. Tie business operational performance and expected results measures to each stakeholder’s project plans. They need to identify new metrics for their success. These new metrics require them to accomplish the change plan and process to your desired conclusion. They will have no choice but to connect their achievement to the new strategy.

4. Involve your key top performing employees early in the plan to get them similarly committed to the upshot of the change. They will be your eyes and ears to give you valuable feedback from the employee grapevine so that you can act on to head off the development of derailing tactics. They will be your feet on the ground to squelch the negative chatter and keep the rest of their workmates focused and on track. Consider adjusting employee reward and recognition and learning and development systems. This will guide and direct employee behaviors that are consistent with your new strategy.

5. Conduct weekly progress review meetings with all key stakeholders, including direct one-on-one interactions. Provide continuous support and encouragement to maintain the focus on the goals of the program. Make the agenda of the new strategy and the project to get there more important and time consuming than the agenda of the political network. You must be sure that the program executes in a complete and thorough way. After the hundred-day period, you can shift your emphasis from weekly review meetings. Spread them out to monthly and even integrate change topic into your normal business and operational reviews.

Finally, communicate, communicate, and communicate.