Reassessing Change
Playing the Odds
Attempting change is gamble, and like a casino, change- savvy leaders play the odds. Not all changes are a good idea and our first hard task is move back from your own desire to introduce change, and re-assess the chances of your change idea succeeding. By only backing those ideas with a high probability of success, you free up more time to devote to those projects and greatly increase your success rate. To assess your idea’s chances of success, consider whether it:
- Has significant benefits for the people responsible for its implementation? (Y = 1, N=0)
- Runs against the existing and strong norms for how people interact and work within your organisation? (Y=-1, N=1)
- Has the active and genuine support of your boss and other senior managers in the organisation? (Y=1, N=0)
- Is one of many changes the people responsible for implementing it are dealing with? (Y=0, N=1)
- Increases staff workload by more than 10% (Y=-1, N=1)
- Has sufficient money and resources behind it (Y=1, N=0)
Now give the project a score out of six to determine its chances of success (e.g. 3/6 = 50%). Learning to let go of ideas whose time just isn’t right is an important skill in change-savvy leadership. If the score is low and the change is absolutely critical, put time into addressing the above factors before introducing the change itself.