Marketing teams make changes all the time. But to make big changes in marketing, like using your technology stack more effectively, reducing your time to market, or improving campaign results, a concerted effort to communicate and deliver change is necessary.
During a presentation in the fall MarTech Conference, Melissa Reeve discussed the “middle-of-the-road” strategy, a way to drive successful change in marketing.
As human beings, we sometimes make decisions without considering all the implications of our choices. For example, Reeve says, many marketing organizations deploy marketing technologies without having a change management mindset in mind. This leads to low adoption and usage rates.
In small organizations, change management is often done on an ad hoc basis, if at all. Change management initiatives involve planning how change will be deployed, communicated and who will be impacted. New skills might even be required.
Explore common change management frameworks
One of the hallmarks of change management is that it also actively manages those who oppose it.
All change management frameworks present a series of steps that organizations must follow. These help organizations manage change effectively.
Leading Change, by Harvard professor John Kotter, is one of the most popular frameworks. It outlines eight steps to help organizations pilot programs, consolidate early wins, and begin building momentum for change.
The ADKAR method aims to help people understand the need for change. This helps people understand what (i.e. what changes are happening) and how the change will affect them personally.
The McKinsey 7S system has been around since the 1970s. It helps organizations think about the different areas of the organization involved and helps them work towards alignment. This is useful for scaling organizations, for example, if you go from 50 to 500 people.
Kurt Lewin offers a very simple three-step process for understanding and implementing organizational change. This requires organizations to unblock their current way of doing things. Then they communicate and put the changes into practice, then reconfigure the new way of working, to codify it and implement this new way of change.
But according to the Harvard Business Review, only 12% of change initiatives meet or exceed expectations. According to McKinsey and Company, only one in eight change initiatives produces lasting results.
Reeve explains why failure to change is such a problem for marketing organizations in the clip below:
Reeve says questions to consider include:
How do you manage change in your organization? Do you have a change management framework? Are you implementing change systematically, thinking holistically? Or do you rely on good intentions and luck to implement and communicate your change?
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A different approach to change management
The frameworks we looked at previously, such as the ADKAR or CADR framework, are generally referred to as “bottom-up” or “top-down”. Reeve says top-down change initiatives tend to be too simplistic. They lack the nuance they need to truly address some of the challenges faced by the people doing the work.
Bottom-up change initiatives lack perspective linking change to business outcomes. Fundamentally, large organizational changes require the knowledge and experience found in the middle of the hierarchy.
It turns out, according to Reeve, that the most successful transformations harness the collective wisdom of middle managers and teams. These middle managers have enough exposure to leaders to understand the broader goals of the organization. They have enough knowledge about operations to correctly identify key areas for improvement.
But middle management is also far enough removed from day-to-day operations that they aren’t constrained by the way things have always been done.
4 requirements for an intermediate change strategy
Leadership buy-in
Support from senior management is critical to the success of the midstream strategy. Executive support highlights the importance of change and provides essential visibility. Without this support from senior management, Reeve said, middle managers may not have the authority or resources they need to make meaningful changes.
Selection
The next step in strategy is what Reeve says he likes to call selection. In other words, identify and select confirmed actors who demonstrate strong commitment to the initiative.
“These are the people who step up,” she said. “They have the skills and attributes to bridge the gap between strategy and execution. They typically have a track record of consistently delivering results and a proven ability to thrive in ambiguous environments. They demonstrate ingenuity, creativity, can think outside the box and have strong communication and collaboration skills, obviously so necessary when implementing change.
Stretchable
The third component is called stretching.
“Stretch encourages people to cultivate and present bold ideas that can fundamentally change the operational dynamics of organizations and help propel them to greater success,” Reeve said. “To do this, leaders must recognize and validate the concerns raised by these middle managers. Often they are overlooked, but they can provide valuable information about potential obstacles and challenges.
Support
The fourth element of the middle strategy is support. “Middle managers play a crucial role in implementing change within an organization and must have adequate support in terms of focus and authority to act,” she said. “These managers must have the financial, human and technological resources necessary to implement change. »
Organizations can help middle managers by clearly explaining the vision and objectives of the change. They should also provide training and professional development.
A case study in midstream change management
T-Mobile wanted to move from a very complex website to one that truly put customer needs first. Leadership sponsored a dedicated cross-functional team to revamp the experience. Reeve said leaders gave a very simple charter: do what’s necessary to move the world.
“The team was focused. They were empowered. No constraints were imposed on them. The team had to boil down this grand vision into three goals. She set out to enable effortless discovery, selling and service.
They needed the website to be simple and straightforward, and they needed to radically reconsider the T-Mobile brand as a “non-carrier.”
The rate of very satisfied users of the website increased from 10% to 50%. Ease of use increased from 22% to 57%. And the shopping experience has improved by 50%.
5 practices to improve your change management results
After discussing the downsides of top-down and bottom-up strategies and the components of middle strategy, Reeve reviewed six practices that can support change initiatives in your organization.
According to a Harvard study, there is a direct correlation between the number of these 6 practices you implement and your success rate.
1. Invest in change. In the Harvard study, almost all of the change initiatives that failed were underfunded or financed through cost-cutting measures. This alone will not be enough.
2. Don’t view change as a project to be completed. Think of it like healthy eating. You have to continue doing it to see the benefits.
3. Create a feeling of common responsibility. No one should be able to point to one person and say, “This change is their job, not mine.” »
4. Manage the amount of change. Harvard research indicated that changing more than two main routines at once significantly increased the chances of failure.
5. Support bold ambitions. Use these bold ambitions and these bold visions to unify, to motivate. And within this framework, manage your opponents.
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