Practical guide on how to implement change

Ian Coyne is a self-styled change leader who has worked with organisations such as KPMG, Royal Bank of Scotland and Pearson.

This volume is a practical guide on how to implement change.

Too much emphasis is given to deadlines rather than journeys, he says.

We are always optimists and we are inevitably wrong about timelines and change is about more than just a set of deliverables. Successful change adjusts constantly based on what you learn along the way.

One of his more interesting chapters concerns the emotional impact on change where he talks about the emotional bank account, which is either in credit or debit with the people you deal with.

This account is the only thing that differentiates someone having to do something for you and wanting to do something for you. It is the only thing that allows you to borrow people’s favours in anticipation of future returns and is the difference between people complying with requests and going the extra mile for you.

You can gain emotional credit simply by thinking from someone else’s perspective. Coyne presents a simple example where going into every meeting with his managers he prepares a short agenda condensing down everything he needs from them and what they need to do.

This short plan shows that you are on top of what is going on and are flagging things well in advance.

You should start your emotional bank account in credit, stay in credit most of the time and be aware of where you are at in each relationship.

Making successful change happen relies on being able to deal with unexpected bumps in the road and to do this you will need others. Being thoughtful with your emotional credit with people will mean that when you want to make a withdrawal, you will have enough in the account to make this happen.

Moreover, Coyne emphasises that achieving change is not so much about projects, as it is about people. You need a plan of how to engage with the people within your change that sits alongside your project plan. The advice here is to take the large and complex and break it down into small actionable elements in a process described as “divide, engage and measure”.

Once you know the people who will be impacted by the change you need to determine firstly, how the change will affect them and secondly, what you want them to do. Engagement should focus on the effects from the recipients’ point of view, showing benefits where possible. However, telling people what is happening and why is simple. You need to think harder about the people that you want to actually do something, rather than just complying.

As a change leader you are likely to be so close to the detail of the project there is a danger that you may lose sight of how much others don’t understand. Consequently, a bias for overexplaining may be a good thing.

The methods you choose to communicate are important. Written communication has a huge role to play and sets in stone what is happening. It can bring total clarity where ambiguity might exist. However, face-to-face communication carries greater weight. You get instant feedback and you learn what people really think.

Authenticity is vital here. Letting people get to know you, like you and see your passion for the change you are making will more likely result in them buying in to what you are doing.

Coyne attempts occasionally to put something of himself into the book – something he admits his colleagues once suggested in feedback that he was poor at – but nonetheless it does suffer in many places from a lack of flow by being overly fragmented.

Too many checklists and bullet points break the narrative too often. However, when he practices what he preaches by letting his own personality shine through, Coyne has some worthwhile advice about how to plan and manage change projects.