Bob Knowling's Change Manual

I also tell them that accountability is the best remedy for fear. If you focus on serving the customer, if you ensure that you are improving customer service, if you get after controlling costs, then you don't have anything to worry about. If you're accountable, you don't have anything to fear.

From your experience, which is more important to change first: attitudes or behaviors?

I've found that you have to be focused on results and deliverables, not attitude, expectations, or emotions. When you've got a burning platform like I've got, I don't care whether people believe it or not. Give me the results! The numbers have got to improve. Of course, there are some people who already have the right attitude; they've been waiting for this opportunity. In fact, most people said, "It's about time. Put me in, coach! Where do I sign up?"

When you come into a system that's having problems and you introduce bold initiatives, you face the challenge that there is no belief system. People don't know what they can believe in. So you have to demonstrate that everything you've said actually can happen. That is a huge challenge. Part of that 60-day agenda has to be significant movement in at least some of the areas you have to fix.

Now I got lucky because we saw tremendous improvement in the first 60 days. As a result, this organization has done some things that are being talked about in the analyst community and among the leaders of this business. They can't believe the changes. That kind of early success creates its own belief system; more people sign up, and the momentum takes off.

Let's assume that I'm not the head of a department or a division -- but I still want to create change in my company. What can I do to be a change agent?

I get asked that all the time. There are eight things I tell people. The first is we all have some realm of authority that defines the sandbox in which you can play as an agent of change. A lot of people don't understand that. They think that if they're a change agent, the first thing they've got to do is work on the human resource system to give them a pay-for-performance model. They spend their time thinking, "I've got to get the HR people to cooperate." That's wrong. The place to start is with the things in your organization you already control. There's a tremendous amount you can change.

But they need to understand and accept that limitation: you're not going to revamp the reward and compensation structure, so don't make it an issue. Look within your world and find the boundaries. Then within those boundaries, go for it.

The second thing is that aspiring change agents want permission for their change agenda. I've always felt that asking for permission is asking to be told no. Don't ask permission. You know where the boundaries are. Be bold and take a few risks. Most of the time, if it nets out to the result that you wanted, you're going to be a hero not a goat.

The third thing to remember is that the system is stacked against you. Never underestimate that. Pick your battles. As a change agent, you have to pick which battle you really mean to fight, and never sacrifice the war over one little skirmish. You have to learn to think of leading change like working in an emergency room. If you go to an emergency room, the triage nurse decides who lives and who dies. The kid with a broken finger can wait for five hours while the medical team deals with a life-or-death case that's on the operating table. I faced this at Ameritech. There were 60,000 people, all potential patients. The change agent has limited resources. So you keep coming back to the question, What are the priorities? Some people are going to have to sit in the waiting room.

Fourth, I believe that any change agent has got to have a model of change. That's what working in Ameritech gave me; it's what the Ameritech Institute was all about. Even people who barely understand the change process, who have no idea about a change model, can have a foundation if they stop and ask themselves: What's my point of view?

Fifth, every change agent has to deal with the political issues of change. That means they have to understand that being an effective change agent is not about being a kamikaze pilot. The few kamikaze pilots I've met since I started learning about change are genuinely stupid, bent on self-destruction. I learned a long time ago that a change agent has got to learn to stay alive. A dead change agent doesn't do anybody any good.

What's a more common political problem, and ultimately more difficult, is the issue of being seduced by the organizational opportunity and staying safe. A change agent who's looking over the hedge at the next opportunity isn't going to succeed. I don't believe change agents can stay safe. They've got to answer the question, How am I going to deal with this thing called a career and this political system?