Strategic Planning is a very important aspect of business activities and is practiced widely – if not always so satisfactorily. Well designed and executed planning provides an overall strategic direction to the management and employees of an organization and also enables functional areas such as finance, marketing, organizational development, and human resources to achieve success.

Done well, strategic planning is a very clear roadmap that enables an organization or business of any size, to achieve its’ goals. Done poorly, or not at all, and a company stands very little chance of surviving, let alone prospering.

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Change Management versus Transition Management

Many people are confused with the difference between “Change Management”, and Transition Management. Change is an external event that is focused on an end result or an outcome, and refers to the endless number of initiatives the organization or business is undertaking in order to ensure the strategy works: the new technologies, restructuring, new products or processes, mergers, websites, joint venture or affiliate partners, and so on.

Transition management refers to the people side of the process: what you, your staff, or your partners must go through to let go of the old, move through the confusing time between the old and the new, and ensure a successful new beginning. Transition goes on inside people in response to the actual change event(s) and is highly personal.

Whenever a change is launched, it must be lead and managed. There are five core activities at the heart of Change Management:

1. Establish a successful foundation for change.
2. This involves a clear understanding of:
   • Why the change is necessary
   • What is at stake if change is not made
   • What the future direction is
3. Consider all possible change solutions that address the problems or opportunities inherent in the need for change.
4. Conduct a thorough impact assessment on the solutions that are being seriously considered.
5. Decide on the best change solution and design a detailed implementation plan.
6. Implement the plan, build in feedback loops, and correct as required.

“Change Management” is incomplete in itself. Change management focuses on the situation and on creating an alternative to the status quo. But that new situation will fail if the people who inhabit it and make it work have not, themselves, been changed too.

Change “works” only if it takes root in people’s minds and hearts. Change works only if people go through “transition.” Effective change management alone is not enough. It must be supplemented by Transition Management.

It’s transition, not change, that people resist!

Transition Management

Transition is not just another word for change. Transition is the psychological reorientation that people go through as they come to terms with the external events and the new situation. Change can take place very quickly. Transition may take a long time.

What is needed, in addition to a well planned change management effort, is a transition management plan. There are five core activities in managing organizational transition:

1. Transition Management – One
   • Develop and execute an effective change management plan:
   • Has the problem or opportunity been sold? Are people aware of it and the consequences of not addressing it?
   • Were representatives of the affected groups involved in the problem solving process before changes were decided on?
   • Is there a well planned communication scenario, covering the who, what, how, and when?
   • Have transition monitoring mechanisms been created? Formal bottoms-up feedback loops built in?
2. Transition Management – Two
   • Identify where groups and key individuals are in the three-phase transition process:
   • Phase One: transition starts with an ending or a loss. Only after people have left behind the old life, can they grasp the new.
   • Phase Two: a necessary interim, gap, no-man’s land, neutral zone, after the ending. Old identity is gone, the new identity is not yet established.
   • Phase Three: transition finishes with a new beginning.
3. Transition Management – Three
   • Develop and implement strategies for managing endings and losses.
   • Do people understand exactly what is finished, what is ending, and what is not?
   • Carefully removed anything that would give people an excuse to hold on to the past?
   • Used boundary actions and events to mark a clean break with the past and show that today is really different from yesterday?
   • Are people getting all the information they need? Is communication focused on managing endings?
4. Transition Management – Four
   Develop and implement strategies for leading people through and profiting from the “neutral zone.”
   The Two Cs: communication designed to:
   • Maintain Connection to the organization, each other, and the work at hand?
   • Show Concern? That manager’s care.

   The Four Ps: communication that clarifies the:

   • Purpose - why are we doing this? Is there a clear sense of purpose?
   • Picture - what is the outcome going to be like?
   • Plan - can people see a path?
   • Part - do people have a role to play? Involved?
5. Transition Management – Five
   • Develop and implement strategies for helping people to make a new beginning.
   • Do people know what they need to do?
   • People provided with opportunity to practice their newly necessary skills?
   • Work collaboratively with people to help define the new roles and practices?
   • Reward structure supports new appropriate behavior, skills, and knowledge?
   • Publicize and celebrate early successes?
   • Built in responsiveness and flexibility to ensure continued adaptation to changing environment?

This is the fourth in an ongoing series of articles on Change and Transition Management. The next segment explains the process of grieving as it relates to working through change.

It is part of the overall series on Strategic Planning developed to help both Internet Marketers and off-line businesses to succeed in any economy, and in any market.

How you view change affects how you respond to it.  From person to person we look at change differently based on our experience, but even within your daily life, your approach to change will vary with circumstance, state of mind, and whether the change was one you planned or one that was planned for you.  On the whole, your response in times of transition will follow a similar pattern based on your past experiences with change.  If change seems like danger, then you may tend to respond defensively or as if threatened.  If it seems like an opportunity, you will be much quicker to move into the change.

Whether you view change as a loss or an opportunity depends on a number of factors.  Some of those factors are external to you, and others depend on how you perceive the change.  When there are many changes happening at once, or the changes are coming at a very fast pace, or there are a number of major changes occurring simultaneously, there is a greater chance that a you may experience that change as a loss … even if it is a “good change”, such as a promotion, or a bigger office.  Even seemingly good changes knock you out of your routine, or change your relationships in a way that can be difficult to deal with.

How you personally consider a specific change has a great impact on how you will respond to it.  The greater the meaning you place upon a change, the greater may be the sense of loss. Two people can experience the same set of circumstances, but view them differently.

How you view a change can influence how you communicate, make decisions, plan and solve problems.  How much control you had over the change will probably affect how you respond to it.  Whether you had involvement in planning the change can also contribute to how the change is experienced.

It is also very important that you understand and honor the past.  There were good and valid reasons why things are the way they are now as you prepare to launch a new business venture, or to change an existing organization in some way.  Spend some time understanding were you came from, and why; and it will be lot easier to move into your future.

As mentioned earlier, a crucial factor in how you interact with a change is how you look at the change.  The more you value what is changing, the greater the sense of uncertainty you may experience.  Therefore, it is critical that you have a clear understanding of not only what is changing, but what is on the other side of the change.  You may even need to give yourself time to “grieve” for what was in order for you to move onto into the future.

This is the third in an ongoing series of articles on Change and Transition Management.  The next segment explains the critical difference between Change Management and Transition Management.

It is part of the overall series on Strategic Planning developed to help both Internet Marketers and off-line businesses to succeed in any economy, and in any market.

Every kind of business is now competing in a world in which constant flux is the norm.  Change cannot follow our once-orderly models of “plan, implement, and then sustain.”  People who studied organizations in the 1960s and 1970s were trained in a three-step model posited by Kurt Lewin.

Kurt Lewin developed a three-step model that he called “Force Field Analysis” to help people and companies deal with change.  It looks at forces that are either driving movement toward a goal (helping forces) or blocking movement toward a goal (hindering forces).  In the first step, the work was to “unfreeze” the organization from its current state.  Then, theoretically at least, you moved through the “transition” phase where the real change occurred.  Finally, you reached the future or “refreeze” stage where the change was solidified.  It was difficult, but if leaders could move people in the organization through it, everyone could get back to the “real work.”

What is useful about this framework is that it gives rise to thinking about a staged approach to changing things.  Planning before you do something is usually sound practice.

What is not useful about this framework is that it does not allow for change efforts that begin when you already in the midst of a change (i.e., already “unfrozen”), nor does it help a business faced with the prospect of having to stay in flux for extended periods of time (i.e., staying “unfrozen”).

In other words, the beginning and ending point of the unfreeze-change-refreeze model is stability - which, for some people and some organizations, is a real luxury.

Now, change is the real work.  Lewin’s model appears, in perfect hindsight, to be pretty unrealistic.  Today, instead of the unfreeze-transition-refreeze sequence, the best we have is continual “whitewater” - that is, continual change.

A more useful way to think about the change process is as a problem to be solved.  Managing change is seen as a matter of moving from one condition to another, specifically, from having a problem to solving the problem.

You must first figure out what the problem really is. Goals can then be set and achieved. Ends and means are discussed and related to one another.  Careful planning is accompanied by efforts to obtain buy-in, support and commitment.  The net effect is movement from one set of circumstances to another in a planned, orderly fashion.  This is the planned change model.

Planned Change models all have these elements in common:

1. Exploration Phase Activities : becoming aware for the need for change, searching for outside assistance, establishing consultant contracts if needed
2. Planning Phase Activities : collecting information to ensure correct ‘diagnosis’ of needs; establish change goals and actions to achieve goals; get ‘decision makers’ support
3. Action Phase Activities : implementation of changes - getting ‘buy in’ from everyone affected & evaluation of implementation activities
4. Integration Phase Activities : consolidating and stabilizing changes so they become part of the organization’s normal activities (reinforcing behaviors, decreasing reliance on change consultants)

The main issue confronting those facing change is that very often it is not planned.  It is the result of factors that may be beyond your control, or unforeseen when you were creating your plans.  This requires a fair amount of flexibility in responding to events.  The more you know about how people react when faced with change, the more successful you will be in making change work for you.

This is the second in an ongoing series of articles on Change and Transition Management.  The next segment deals with individual responses to change.

It is part of the overall series on Strategic Planning developed to help both Internet Marketers and off-line businesses to succeed in any economy, and in any market.

Change is one of those words that can send even the most seasoned manager or business owner into a panic.  Generally it means some level of disruption in your daily operations, or in your plans for the future.  However, it does not have to be that way.  When you really sit down and think about, you are dealing with changes, both large and small every single day in your business, as you deal with customer requests or issues, new product roll-outs, signing up joint venture or affiliate partners, creating new websites, and on and on - and that doesn’t even take into consideration all of the changes in your personal live that you have dealt with / must deal with every day.

If you really think about it, you are an expert at dealing with change already.  In this series of articles, I am going to break down the concept of change so that it will be even easier for you to capitalize on what you are already very good at, managing change.

As a leader you play an important role in developing an organization that is flexible to change. “Leading change” is defined as clearly communicating the need for change and gaining employees’ commitment to it.  Part of the process of leading change is demonstrating flexibility and willingness to embrace change, along with communicating candidly the impact of the proposed change on the people involved.

As a business owner whether in a traditional brick and mortar business, or as an Internet Marketer, you will be dealing with change.  Change can be upsetting to employees, suppliers, outsource partners, Joint Venture partners, or even Affiliates.

The change might be having a new boss, introducing a new product, fending off an aggressive competitor, dealing with hard economic times, or creating a new website.  All of these are changes, some you wanted, and some you probably did not.

Although most people would agree that change is essential if an organization or even a single owner business is to grow and remain competitive - it is also true that change often produces anxiety and resistance, even when it is perceived as positive.  To lead or deal with change successfully, managers or owners must take into account both the business impact and the psychological impact on the people responsible for supporting and implementing the change.  By understanding how each person is experiencing the change, you can help lead others (or yourself) successfully through the transition process.

Change must be introduced through candid and continuous communication.  For people to “buy in” to the change, they must see it as achieving a necessary and specific improvement, such as increasing productivity or client satisfaction.  People also must perceive in the change a clear personal benefit to them, such as making work more efficient or ensuring the financial health of the company, or generating more commissions.

Initially, the change process should be broken down into small, incremental pieces shaped around goals that yield tangible, measurable, short-term successes.  Then, after these initial gains are made, more ambitious goals can be set.  You greatly increase the chances that the effort will be accepted and successful throughout the change process by communicating and focusing on results, working with others to identify and overcome their resistance, systematically planning for the change, and monitoring and measuring progress.

This is the first in an ongoing series of articles on Change and Transition Management.  The next segment deals with one of the earliest and most commonly used models for managing change - Force Field Analysis, and why it no longer really works.

It is part of the overall series on Strategic Planning developed to help both on and off-line businesses to succeed in any economy, and in any market.

The next time you are having trouble dealing with changes in your life, or in your work, consider the possibility that the problem isn’t with the change but with the transition. “What’s the difference?” you may wonder. There’s a big difference.

The difference between change and transition can be illustrated with the example of a geographical move. The change is the relocation itself; it involves packing dishes, getting a mover, selling your home, and taking an airplane trip. It is the external, visible things that are now different. The transition involves all the confusion, distress, and excitement that you and your family go through. Transition is internal to you. It is the psychological process that you go through to let go of what was, and come to embrace the new reality.

Whereas changes are always unique to the situations in which they take place, transitions show a remarkable similarity, one to another.

First, transition always starts with an ending. Even though change can be initiated by something new, the internal, psychological process that accompanies it always starts by separating from, getting closure on, or bidding farewell to the old reality and the identity that went with it. Even in a “good” change, like starting a family, one has to let go of the old life. You cannot make a new beginning without making an ending first.

After the ending has been made, a beginning is possible-but it cannot occur immediately. First you must go through an in‑between state that there is no accepted name for-a time when the old reality and the old identity are gone, but the new ones have not yet taken root in your mind and heart. Bill Bridges calls this the “neutral zone,” to capture the in‑betweenness and the neither-this-nor-that quality.

The ending disengages us and the neutral zone is a kind of fallow time when old habits are extinguished and new possibilities are born. It is out of the neutral zone that the third and final phase of the transition (the beginning) emerges. This beginning is not to be confused with the “start” of the new situation, which may have happened on Day One. The beginning is when you really buy in, get on board, and feel at home with the new.

Whenever a change occurs, those affected by it go through all three of these psychological phases as they come to terms with the new situation. If for any reason you do not go through them, the change simply fails to “take.” It is a paper change; you are living at your address; you are now a parent, where before it was just you and your spouse; you had to move to a new location to get a job. It looks different on the outside, but inside of you, nothing is any different. You have not ‘let go’ as yet. Until you do, I may be very difficult to really accept your new situation.

Now, think back to some personal change that did not work as it was supposed to. Ask yourself these questions:

• Whatever the details, wasn’t the reason that the change failed that you didn’t work through the three stages of transition?
• And however well the change was managed, isn’t it true that there was no explicit attention given to the transition? Did you assume that if the change was well planned and executed, the transition would take care of itself?

What you needed was a transition management plan-a way to manage the endings, the neutral zone, and the new beginnings.

Here is an exercise you can do to help you deal with changes and transitions:

PAST EXPERIENCES & COPING STRATEGIES

Directions:

Write today’s date in the timeline

Mark, on the line below, several major events, crises and transitions you’ve experienced.

Timeline

|_______________________________________________________________________________________|

Choose a particularly challenging event that you were able to work through successfully.

What coping strategies helped you get through it — helped you cope effectively?

Coping strategies are things you do in an effort to respond to and manage stressful situations, people or events. They can be such things as talking with family or friends, praying, doing research on the new situation, or simply “sucking it up” and moving on.

• Choose the most helpful coping strategy that got you through the situation.
• Compare coping strategies with your spouse, friends, children, etc..

Change can be a burden, or a new beginning - the choice is yours.

We all have the joy of choice.
We can either be a victim of change, or a participant in it.
One holds you,
And one frees you

Change and Grieving

As you are experiencing change, especially if you consider it significant change, you may experience a profound sense of loss. Oddly enough, this may occur even if the change is perceived as something that is positive, such as a raise that enables you to move into a bigger house.

In order to move beyond the change, you may need to allow some time to mourn, or grieve for what has been lost. In the above example of moving to a new house, you may have moved out of the neighborhood you grew up in. You may have moved across the state and away from your best friend. You will likely experience these as a personal loss.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross documented the stages of grief that terminally ill people go through. In the ensuing years, it was noticed that this emotional cycle was not exclusive just to the terminally ill, but also other people who were affected by bad news, such as losing their jobs or otherwise being negatively affected by change. The important factor is not that the change is good or bad, but that they perceive it as a significantly negative event.

The stages are:

• Shock stage: Initial paralysis at hearing the news.
• Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable.
• Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion.
• Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out.
• Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable.
• Testing stage: Seeking realistic solutions.
• Hope and acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward.

Most write ups of this model in recent years have focused on grief, while this is great for doctors and councilors, it is not helpful in business.

The determining factor in the application of the Kübler-Ross model is not so much the event but the potential pain or importance that you might associate with a particular change. Given two people facing a layoff, one may cope perfectly fine with the job loss and see it as an opportunity to try new things and finally get out of a dead-end position. The other individual, having staked their future plans on a continued career with the same company they loved working for, might well find themselves going through the five stages of grief.

It is important to note that not all individuals will pass through all five stages of grief, do so in any predetermined amount of time, or necessarily do so in the order outlined below. It does appear, however, that any individual dealing with considerable grief will probably pass through at least two of the stages.

Grief can take months, even years, depending on the extent of your crisis or loss, your ability to cope and the support you have. Generally, time is a healer. In the end, the change will be in the past. Life will eventually start to re-emerge.

This is the fifth in an ongoing series of articles on Change and Transition Management.

It is part of the overall series on Strategic Planning developed to help both Internet Marketers and off-line businesses to succeed in any economy, and in any market.

Reserves are common in military applications, but largely unknown in the business world outside of things like financial reserves and reserve capacities. Despite the fact that they are not commonly considered in the business world, they are of great importance, for the whole concept of reserves is based on the premise that it is impossible to predict the future with accuracy. Very simply put, this means that your estimate of the resources you need for any project will probably be wrong—and normally wrong on the low side. If you want to be able to deal successfully with the uncertainty associated with the future, you must have the flexibility provided by reserves.

Reserves are forces or assets deliberately withheld until there is a critical juncture in a campaign or business opportunity; at which point they are committed in order to have a dramatic impact on the strategic outcome of whatever it is that you are trying to do. You commit reserves to make a fundamental change in a situation.

Think about a situation where you have an advertising budget in reserve. If you parcel it out over the course of a year by putting an occasional ad in a newspaper or magazine, you are not likely to see big results. On the other hand, if you put it all against a Super Bowl ad, you might get a spectacular return.

The most difficult aspect may be mindset; businesses tend to be so fixated on cost, that there is an automatic assumption that anyone not working at 100% or more of their capacity is not earning their pay. However, the cost of not having people or other resources to commit when opportunity presents itself is likely to be significantly higher than the amount saved by not having reserves.

Reserves can be such things as capital, people, or knowledge. You can create them by delaying projects; shifting resources; outsourcing work; creating joint ventures; affiliates, or other alliances; through acquisitions, or by re-rolling individuals or groups. It really is limited only by your imagination. The key point is the shift in thinking that must take place.

You can use reserves to reinforce success or to check failure. Which you choose depends on your mindset. Do you see problems, or do you see opportunities?

When you commit reserves, consider seriously doing it en masse to make a big difference. Few things have been as ineffective as piecemeal commitment. Go for it when the opportunity arises!

Unless you are certain that you can perfectly predict the future, you should develop an organization structure or a business plan that allows you to maintain and commit reserves with ease. Likewise, you should develop a mindset in advance about whether you are more comfortable with using reserves to capitalize on opportunity, or to deal with setbacks.