🎣 The Catchup

Dear readers,

Last week was a big one…

Unless you’re new here, you’ll notice that I’m trying out a new newsletter tool this week… I’ll spare you all the reasons for the change but I was essentially trying to solve pain points while enabling new capabilities to write a better newsletter.

For example, I can now host surveys and polls as part of my newsletter (new capability). I’d love it if you could answer 4 quick questions to make the newsletter better:

I did this tool migration in the margins of life (late at night after work and when the kids were in bed) and finished up this weekend. Now I need to learn the new tool to get back to my previous “cruising speed”.

This gave me the inspiration for this week’s post… The same dynamic is at play when you implement new Procurement systems and processes. You’re essentially making things harder for your yourself in the short term with the promise of a payoff in the medium/long term.

The entire team needs to understand and embrace this reality to increase chances of success! I explore this further in this week’s note.

Have a great week ahead.

Best,

Joël

P.S. In case you missed it, here was my best LinkedIn post of the week:

How I tame "Tail Spend" (with enterprise clients)

🌙 Sunday Night Note

When you bring new Procurement processes and systems into the picture, it's usually to improve your work by accomplishing one or more of 3 things:

1. Do existing tasks faster (improve cycle time)

2. Eliminate existing tasks (remove non-value add activities)

3. Create new value-added tasks (develop new business capabilities)

It’s important to be clear on which one(s) you’re chasing with any given initiative as it will instruct how you craft your key messages to justify the initiative with executives and colleagues alike (e.g. business case).

With the first two, colleagues and users will have an expectation of immediate benefits when using the new process or system without much effort on their part (think: automating the export and formatting of an existing report).

These types of improvements are important but typically only provide marginal benefits when compared to the third category : developing new capabilities. Why? Well, the third category enables the realization of ambitious new business objectives.

However, the third category is the hardest to pull off… Why? As I discussed last week, any change requires you get everyone “on the bus” for a successful change. The third change category the hardest trip you can take on the bus:

• Passengers need to develop new knowledge and skills on the way (vs doing existing tasks faster or to stop doing them altogether)

• They all need to remember why you’re going on the trip in the first place to avoid “Why are we even on this bus?” type conversations.

• They all need to know about the milestones along the way to avoid “Are we there yet?” type conversations.

When the bus arrives at destination and you start using a new process or system, initial business performance will most likely be worse than before the change. Colleagues are applying their new knowledge and skills for the first time in practice. The learning curve is normal. If your solution was properly developed and implemented, your teams will soon shoot past previous performance.

BUT, if you didn’t have everyone “on the bus”… If your key message weren’t clear… Your initiative might be jeopardized by colleagues with power who don’t understand what you are doing or what you are looking to accomplish.

That would be a damn shame.

…

So, how can your initiatives be perceived like those projects that go so smoothly nobody ever talks about them?

Last week, I identified the ADKAR model as a useful framework to help you with this.

Some of you rightfully pointed out that I didn’t go into much detail on how to use it. Touché! So here goes… Here’s the essential:

A - Awareness

• Identify all the different stakeholders that will be impacted by your change (If you want to be more systematic and deliberate with this step, you can use the Change Impact Analysis method)

• Determine the “key messages” each different group needs to hear to be made aware of the coming changes and the expectations.

• Plan communication activities in consequence (e.g. project kickoff, tailored to the stakeholders group, where key messages are communicated about the “Why” behind the project and the expectations). You may have to onboard executives/managers before you can hold these sessions if you’re going to be soliciting their employees.

• If people are not aware of what needs to change and why it needs to change, well your bus won’t go very far.

D - Desire

• In these awareness sessions, your key messages need to be crafted with the audience’s reality in mind. How are you stimulating a “desire to change”? Your audience needs to feel the urgency behind the change.

• “Meeting a corporate objective” might be enough for some employees but probably not for all. A good exercise to brainstorm your key messages is putting yourself in different stakeholders’ shoes and asking “What’s in it for me?”

• Address any perceived resistance as soon as possible with concerned parties. Rework your key messages and/or project in consequence. The quality of your end result will be determined by the number of hard conversations you’re willing to have. Don’t let resistance fester. Control your messages.

• On top of being aware of the coming change, stakeholders need to feel the desire for change. This is the gas in your bus.

K - Knowledge & A - Ability

• Based on how all stakeholders will be impacted, identify the new knowledge and abilities that will be needed.

• Then, identify how that knowledge will be built (e.g. training, mentoring, etc.) and how the related abilities (or practical application of knowledge) will be validated (e.g. practice, coaching, testing, measuring, etc.).

• You can get creative with this. No need to always use the “classic classroom training”…

R - Reinforcement

• Elaborate a strategy for how and when you will monitor progress against the desired change (e.g. Key Process Performance Indicators)

• Depending on the results, you’ll need to follow-up with stakeholders that need support to reinforce the new knowledge and abilities requested of them.

When I write it out like that, it probably seems very simple and intuitive... Yet, most big projects I’ve been involved have missed elements from the above…

• Unidentified stakeholders who feel insulted

• Knowledge given to employees without validating their ability to apply this newfound knowledge

• No reinforcement over time which atrophies benefits

• Etc.

This is the whole point of putting together a Change Management strategy: minimizing the risks of the above happening for important projects…

If you use the ADKAR model as a checklist when you deploy new Procurement process and system initiatives, or even new category strategies, you’ll ensure you cover your bases. This will increase your chances of success with the change you seek to make.

This is less critical for the first two types of changes but absolutely mandatory when you are trying to develop new business capabilities… This is how you make a vision inside your head turn into reality!

💭 Quote of the Week

🧧 Recommendation of the Week

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