It is amazing how motivated people are when they understand their personal career success will be enhanced by making a project succeed.

A survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development a few years ago found that re-organisations are a high-frequency, high-stakes activity – businesses can expect to re-organise in a major way roughly once every three years, both the “hard” elements of structures and systems as well as the so-called “soft” aspects, such as culture.

With re-organisations failing to meet objectives in 40 percent of cases, the survey showed there wasn’t much room to improve their impact on performance. The survey was carried out when times were good and with many businesses now struggling to cope post-recession, the pressure to re-organise and transform services with the aim of improving efficiency and cutting costs is enormous. Everyone is doing it, and the stakes are higher than ever.

But while there are undoubtedly positives in business transformation, the reality is that you often cannot achieve change without conflict – and lots of it, sometimes. However conflict is a personal, “people” thing, and the success of your project will depend on how well you manage this.  This is a challenge that often requires strong people skills and an understanding of human psychology, skills that are not always readily available.

A complex art
I’ve seen a variety of different projects in my 20 years in business that have required significant change within the business in South African telecoms companies, with IBM across three continents, and currently in my global role for Swiss Post Solutions. I’ve seen innovative, potentially great projects struggle, and I’ve seen unlikely ones succeed. Why? That’s where it gets interesting. It’s all in the execution and execution is a complex art, particularly when you take into account the people that are involved.

One of the interesting things I have observed is how often cultural differences affect the way change projects are approached, in particular cultural differences between nationalities. For example, I have seen how differently change projects are approached in Europe when compared to the US, and there are pros and cons with each. In Europe I have found the corporate culture of many organisations to encourage a very consensus-based approach to large change projects they want everyone to buy in, and indeed, try to accommodate one and all, even when individual objectives are not necessarily in line with corporate goals.

A typical result of this is that projects which are kicked off with much fanfare and excitement regularly struggle to get off the ground. I have experienced this recently, where some time after the project was kicked off, there were still some parts of the organisation resisting because it did not quite meet their local objectives, despite fully meeting the global goals in every way.

Misaligned targets
Sometimes, of course, there are good reasons why people resist change, but some are simply nonsensical and frustrating:
– It doesn’t work for us because of local conditions.
– We already did it and it didn’t work last time.
– If you implement this, we can’t achieve our other targets.
– We don’t have the resources locally to commit to the project.

The last two excuses allude to what I believe is often the real issue, particularly on multi-national or organisation-wide type projects misaligned targets between the top of the business and the levels lower down, where the change often has to be implemented. This leads to an organisation not being committed throughout to delivering the change, both in it not being a priority for them and in them not committing the required resources to get the job done.

Sometimes it can simply be a case of the business itself failing to sit down and give sufficient incentive to every part of the organisation to actively support the initiative, and ensure there are no targets lower down that are at cross-purposes with the goals and objects of the project itself. It is obvious that the more an organisation can align objectives and incentives across the business, the lower the level of likely resistance.

Cultural niceties
A further complication when running a major cross border and/or business unit transformation project, as is the case with a pan-European project I have recently been involved in, is taking account of the differences between countries. There’s an old joke that envisages Heaven in Europe as a place where the British are the policemen, the French are the cooks, the Germans are the engineers, the Italians are the lovers and the Swiss run the place. Hell is where the British are the cooks, the French are the engineers, the Germans are the policemen, the Swiss are the lovers and the Italians run the place.

It is, of course, dangerous to resort to stereotypes, but this is something I relate to. Managing a culturally diverse team is not easy and adds considerably to the stresses of delivering transformation. There comes a point where you simply cannot accommodate every cultural nuance and nicety.

Autocratic approach
This is an argument that many CEOs in the US would understand. Unlike the European approach, US-based companies often employ a more autocratic, top-down approach: once the decision is made, everyone is expected to fall in line and deliver. Although this approach may not always achieve the buy-in of everyone affected, it does tend to have the positive result of faster implementation and quicker returns.

This might not go down well with all people, but I think there may be something to be said for the direct approach. Unfortunately it is human nature to resist change – even change that has been sanctioned by the CEO. Corporate politics are complex. People have different agendas, and with the best will in the world sometimes tough love is required.

Would it have worked with a different approach? Maybe, but it may have taken longer, would have been more painful, and maybe we would not have had the same positive outcome. The change would of course have been more expensive. From where I have sat, it has often been worth short-term pain to get the outcome the senior leadership and shareholders have been looking for.

Power to the people
This leads on to a related point – as well as having individuals running projects with the ability to drive through change, it is also beholden on leaders to empower them to make it happen. Those at the top can either be enablers or inhibitors to change. It is amazing how motivated people are when they understand their personal career success will be enhanced by making a project succeed.

It should never be forgotten that business change and transformation usually bring with them uncertainty for employees, especially as they are often synonymous with organisational restructuring and potential job losses. This is where the top-down approach has its dangers, rather than trying to bring staff along with the move and even have them participate in what is happening and designing the change themselves.

This can only go so far before it risks organisational paralysis, but a hybrid of the European and US approaches to transformation could deliver the best of all worlds for companies undergoing this most stressful of activities.